“You have a lame-ass boyfriend? What does he do? Do we need to give him a good kicking?” Jemma looks hopeful. She does mixed martial arts as a hobby.
“Butt-cucumbers and kickings come later,” Clarita decrees.
Jemma looks disappointed and takes a swig of wine.
“Point of order!” Edna interjects. “In my day, ladies never talked about butt-cucumbers.”
“Duly noted.” Clarita opens her notebook. “We’re not using Robert’s Rules of Order. This is an informal meeting in which we are completing our alterations and going over our current list of volunteers. In addition to me, we have two other retired teachers on our emergency babysitter list. We have three handymen who can do emergency fix-it stuff in buildings where our crappy landlords won’t do the repairs.”
A voice booms out from the shadows, making us jump. “How many lawyers do you have on your volunteer roster, to deal with the fact that your crappy landlords won’t do repairs?”
Blake strides forward, followed, of course, by Henry.
Ariel looks at me in dismay. “He’s everywhere,” she mouths. She downs the rest of her wine in one gulp.
I nod sympathetically. “I know.”
“How did he just appear like that?” Edna asks. “Was he here the whole time? Do I need to get my glasses fixed?” She takes off her glasses and examines them critically.
“Your glasses are fine. Someone must have looked in a mirror and said his name three times.” I scowl at him. I’m doing my best to ignore him, and my aching heart and my yearning libido, but he’s making it hard by being around all the time. And looking sexy as hell, with a hint of five o’clock shadow dusting that gorgeous face. “More importantly, why are you even here, Blake?”
“Can’t a business owner get actively involved in his community? Also, I have a surprise for you all.” He glances at his watch. “Which will be arriving any minute.”
“That sounds mildly frightening. By the way, Henry, what would you do if Blake ever gave you the night off?” I ask him.
Henry frowns in thought. “Well, that is of course a highly hypothetical situation which has not actually– ”
“Don’t answer that.” Blake turns to face me. “So, where were we?”
“How are you fitting this little visit into your poor overworked planner?” I ask. “How have you not fried your planner’s circuits? I mean, I don’t know how you even find time to pee. God knows I barely do. I had to force everyone to meet me here an hour later than usual just so I could finish placing your grocery order and set up eleven different appointments for you.”
The ladies survey him with considerable hostility, except for Ariel, who’s suddenly fascinated by something on her cell phone.
“He is paying me very well to run his errands from morning to night,” I concede. “So we probably shouldn’t throw anything at him.”
“How unusually non-violent of you,” Blake says drily.
“There’s more to life than work,” Isabella chides him. “You could take our girl out for drinks and dinner, for instance.” Xena burps in agreement and thumps her tail twice, then lays her head back down on my foot, which for her is a show of wild enthusiasm.
“In my day, gentlemen courted ladies properly,” Edna chimes in. “With chaperones.”
“My Nestor used to buy me lunch from a food cart in San Juan, because that was all he could afford then, but at least he made the effort. You can’t even take the girl out for a burger?” Clarita makes an annoyed hmmphing sound and shakes her head.
“Let’s ignore the fact that nobody even asked me if I want to go out to dinner and drinks with him,” I say, annoyed. “It wouldn’t matter, because he’s booked until after his popup thing in August, and then after that he has a major board meeting, so he’s basically booked until he’s dead, and even then he’d probably schedule work stuff for after the funeral. Trust me on this.”
“Boo.” Isabella flaps her hand at Blake. “Loser. Move on.”
Blake sighs, standing there with his hands jammed in his pockets and an expression of martyred patience.
“About those lawyers,” he says.
I shake my head. “I don’t actually know any, and we couldn’t afford it. This is pretty informal. We’re just the neighborhood ladies that you come to if you have some kind of emergency.”
Blake shakes his head, brow wrinkling. “You must get a lot of people taking advantage of your kindness.”
“You must have a very jaded view of human nature,” I observe drily.
“Also, I’m the official bitch.” Jemma takes a swig of wine. “Nobody gets past me when it comes to taking advantage. I’ll cut a bloke soon as look at him.”
Isabella nods. “I’m the assistant bitch. When Jemma’s too busy for bitch duty, I step up to the plate.”
Edna frowns disapprovingly. “When I was growing up, young ladies never used language like that.” Then she sniffs the air. “What’s that smell? Something smells delicious. Unless I’m having a stroke. Wait, then I wouldn’t be able to smell anything. I think.”
“No, I smell it too.” I tip my head back and sniff. It’s the smell of garlic and melted cheese drifting through the air. And not that rubbery stuff they serve in chain restaurants; the good stuff, squeezed out of a free-range cow and made by hand.
“Here we are!” A handsome man with dark wavy jaw-length hair and a classically Roman nose comes around the corner and heads our way, accompanied by a woman with a mane of glorious black curls. They’re wearing very expensive designer jeans and Italian leather boots and jackets, and carrying stacks of pizza boxes.
“Took you long enough,” Blake calls out to him.
“Shut uppa you face,” he says to Blake in a faux-tough-guy accent, then winks at all the assembled ladies. “I’m Nico Rossi, owner of Nico’s Pizza, which will be opening in a few months, and this is my lovely wife, Renata. Blake told me that you’d all be here. I understand that in my absence, my construction crew may have been a little overenthusiastic with their work schedule. These are my official apology pizzas.”
I give Blake a sidelong glance. Is that the only reason he came here? It would make sense. A significant portion of his day is spent schmoozing and strengthening business connections, especially with people who will be taking part in the Popup Palooza.
“I make a motion that we adjourn the meeting for tonight and reconvene Saturday afternoon. Let’s move this pizza party to Clarita’s apartment!” Isabella calls out. “Everyone’s invited except for Blake and Winona. You two should talk.”
The ladies stand up and quickly start packing up their sewing gear and sliding their sewing projects into bags.
No! I do not want to be alone with Blake. Or rather I do, very badly, which is why it can’t happen. “I will smother you with your pillow!” I hiss at Isabella.
“No you won’t. You’d have nobody to walk Xena.”
Xena, who was dozing off, hears her name and wakes up with a bark of confusion. She looks around, sniffs at Edna’s cookie, which is still lying by her nose, and shudders.