Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
“It’s a favor to Noemi,” I said curtly. “She asked me to help her.”
Dominic eyed me warily, trying to decide if I was telling the whole truth. No one could claim I’d never gone out of my way for Noemi before but working on commission was extremely unusual in my line of work. I didn’t blame them for wondering why the hell I was taking a chance like this for Magical Melody.
Unless…
I saw the truth click together in Dominic’s eyes like tumblers in a lock.
“You have a hard on for Magical Melody,” he said loudly.
I whipped my eyes around, making sure no one had overheard. Luckily, there was no one at the tables around us, and the waitress was across the patio.
“Shut the fuck up, Dominic,” Landon advised, his quiet voice laced with exasperation.
“I do not have a hard on for anyone,” I said through gritted teeth, turning back to face my friends.
Con and Julian glanced down the table at us, then went back to talking business. I knew Landon would have let it go–he dealt in sly comments and penetrating gazes. Dominic, on the other hand, had all the subtlety of a fucking bull.
“I don’t blame you,” he said, pulling Landon’s phone toward him.
Landon had the phone off the table and in his pocket before Dominic could get a good look.
“Classified,” he said smoothly.
Dominic laughed and pulled out his own phone. “From what I’ve heard, there’s a lot about Magical Melody that’s about to become unclassified.”
My fingers fisted into the palm of my hand under the table. I smiled unpleasantly. “You heard wrong.”
Dominic looked up at me and cocked his eyebrows curiously. He didn’t have to be as perceptive as Landon to know that something was up. That this wasn’t just about a pay day or a hard on.
“Damn it,” he swore. “Garrett, you’d better not be falling in love with this teeny bopper. I think I’ve given enough to Gen Z.”
He gestured toward Con and Landon, who had both recently fallen in love with younger women. Dominic and I had made a running joke out of it for a few months, but I realized it had been a while since I made any. Probably because I was in danger of becoming the joke.
“I’m not falling in love with anyone,” I muttered.
“You’d better not,” Dominic warned. “We had a deal.”
We had made a deal. Laughing and toasting each other at Con’s wedding in Croatia, Dominic had said, “To it never being our turn.”
And I’d said, “No way in hell.”
And Noemi, my date, had rolled her eyes and said in a vaguely threatening manner, “One day it’s going to happen to you, too.” She’d been at the beginning of her relationship with David Romero, and she kept slipping away to call or text him.
“Not to us,” Dominic and I had assured her.
Never to us.
Wednesdays were my Sundays, and they usually found me at home. My pool was heated, and I liked to swim laps while the tendrils of mist curled into the early morning October air. This particular Wednesday, though, I drove a couple hours north to get breakfast with my folks.
Dr. and Dr. Thompson treated retirement like it was a restaurant with a revolving door. Currently, they were seated, but at any moment, they could rush back through into the workforce. I liked when they took a break. Since I worked on weekends and they worked any and all hours, I didn’t get to see them as much as I wanted.
My dad liked greasy diners, so I met them at The Spoon and found them in their favorite booth, directly across from the pastry case that I could swear had the same five cakes in it for the last ten years.
“Garrett!” my mom waved eagerly when she saw me turn down their aisle, as though I hadn’t already seen them. Then she stood up and bounced on the balls of her toes until I was close enough to throw her arms around.
“Hi Mom,” I said, squeezing her back.
It didn’t matter how often my mom got to see me when they were in their retirement phase. She still carried on like it had been years.
“Hi, son,” my dad said, tears had welled up and now his golden-brown eyes were shining like syrup.
It was a lot, but then, what else could I expect from parents who made a living being in touch with their feelings? There was no embarrassment factor for them. No logical sense of but we just saw our grown adult son two weeks ago. They’d missed me, and so they cried.
And I loved them, so I hugged them and patted their backs until the moment had passed.
“Tell me everything,” my mom ordered, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her napkin. “How are the women in your life?”