“The state could save a lot of money if they let nosey old ladies snoop around instead.”
Now there was a point I wasn’t going to argue with.
That didn’t make it right. True, yes, but half of them would probably pop out their hip or something halfway through climbing the stairs.
“You cannot break into someone’s room,” I repeated, letting my hair out of the bun I’d had it in all day. It was still damp in places, and I grabbed my brush from the counter to detangle the few knots that were buried in it. “It’s illegal. An arrestable offense. And before you try to tell me; no, I do not care to know what’s on Harry’s walls.”
Aunt Bethel sniffed. “I thought you were the fun one. Your brother is boring now he’s all loved up with the girl who likes raccoons.”
Lord, she was tiring. “I am the fun one. That doesn’t mean I condone breaking the law. Also, that girl who likes raccoons happens to be one of my best friends.”
“Doesn’t dating your brother break the girl code? Or whatever it is you kids call it these days?”
“If you need a girl code, it’s because you are going to break it.” I looked at her pointedly. “But you don’t follow the law, so what do I know?”
She blinked at me. “Don’t you care she’s banging your brother?”
The brush clattered to the floor as I dropped it in exchange for my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Mom. She needs to come and collect her child now.” I held the phone to my ear as it started ringing.
“Nooo!” Aunt Bethel shrieked. “I’ll behave. I promise.”
She was surprisingly spritely for her old age and made it to me right as my mom said, “Hello?” My aunt wrestled the phone from me and shouted, “Wrong number!” in a gruff, Brooklyn-esque accent.
I gave her a flat look. “She has my number saved, you idiot.”
“The disrespect to the elders!” Aunt Bethel clutched her chest, then glanced at my phone. “Ooh, you have a text!”
“Give me my phone!”
“It looks like it’s from a guy. Ooh, have you been texting someone?” She quickly scrolled, then stopped, her eyes going wide. “My, my, my, Reagan! You are the fun one of the family!”
I froze.
No.
There was no way Dick Guy had texted me again.
And that my eighty-year-old aunt had scrolled to the top of that conversation and seen—
Jesus.
Fuck.
She had.
Of course she had. This was my great-aunt Bethel. She probably received this for fun online.
She pinched the screen. “Oh, he has tattoos! What a bad boy!”
He had tattoos? I’d missed that.
I snatched my phone right out of her wrinkly little hand. “Yep. Calling Mom right now.”
“Why do you have a penis on your phone?”
“Why are you zooming in to see the tattoos?” I shot back, holding the phone close to my chest. “It’s none of your business what’s on my phone.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you have his number saved?”
“None of your business,” I repeated.
“You don’t know him, do you?” A sly grin spread across her face, revealing a smudge of pink lipstick on her front tooth.
“You’ve got a little lipstick on your front tooth.”
She curled her upper lip up and ran her tongue over her front two teeth, dislodging it. “Why do you have a stranger’s penis on your phone, Reagan? Are you struggling for money? Are your parents cutting you off? Mind you, I’d cut you off if you were a hooker, too, it’s not good for the old reputation—”
“I’m not a hooker!” Oh, my God. How had we gotten this far? “It was a wrong number text and he appreciated that I was nice about his mistake. I was going to delete the conversation but a customer came into the shop, and here we are.” I held out my hands. “No, Mom and Dad are not cutting me off, because I live off my salary anyway. I’m self-sufficient.”
She looked pointedly at me. “You’re self-sufficient in the family business. You’re not exactly the next Sam Jobs.”
“Steve Jobs.”
“What?”
“It was Steve Jobs.”
“Who the devil is that? I’m talking about Sam Jobs, the guy who runs the taco place at the end of Main Street.”
Right.
Of course.
Why would she be talking about the co-founder of Apple?
Small town tacos and innovative worldwide technology. Totally the same thing.
“Anyway.” Aunt Bethel heaved a sigh and grabbed her oversized, fluffy purse from the sofa and headed for the door. Seriously, that purse was like a giant cat. “I have to go. I have a place to be.”
“If it’s Creek Community, I’m calling the police.” I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine.
She looked at it. “It’s Tuesday. Are you drinking already?”
“Yesterday, I woke up to an unexpected dick pic and tonight, you’re in my kitchen. Yes, I’m drinking.”
“You could have offered me one.”
“And be responsible for when you and Margaret strip off in the middle of the park? Absolutely not.”
She huffed and opened the door.
“Do you need a ride anywhere, Aunt Bethel?”
“No. I can walk.” She stopped in the doorway. “Your brother is picking me up and taking me to the grocery store. Toodles.”
Toodles?
Better Preston than me, I’ll tell you that. The one and only time I took her shopping two years ago, they had wine samples at the liquor store next door.
That was my mistake, but I swear she’d been in the car when I’d gone in to get the fixings for margaritas for girls’ night.
I’d even locked her in. I had no idea how she got out.
I removed the cork from the bottle and poured myself a glass, stopping halfway down.
A whole glass seemed appropriate.
I poured again and then set the bottle back in the fridge door. Closing it, I paused, glancing at my phone.
Didn’t she say I had a text?
I cradled the glass as I picked my phone back up. Of course the notification didn’t show now, so I closed all the apps with two taps on the screen and opened my messages app.
Yep.
There was a new message from Dick Guy.
Did I want to open this? There was no reason for him to message me. We’d ended the conversation well earlier this afternoon, and I really was going to delete the thread until someone came into the store.
Shit. I still had to email the girl who called earlier.
Taking a big slurp of wine, I acted like the responsible adult I was and sent the pictures over via the email that was sitting in my draft box in my Gmail app.
All done, I turned my attention back to the unread message from Dick Guy.
I really needed his name.
No, I didn’t. If I had his name, that made him a real person.
Right now, he was whoever I wanted him to be. He was the tall, hot, tattooed firefighter with a rescue chihuahua that I had occasional dream-sex with. That was my fantasy and I was sticking to it.
I didn’t want to find out he was a balding man in his forties who lived in his mom’s basement.