“I mean—”
“Plus,” I continued in that same voice, “recall please that even if I somehow lost my mind and agreed, I don’t own a house where I can throw a party! Dad’s house is under construction, so is Fenn and Mason’s, and yours is gonna be full since Dad and Gloria are staying there. The more I think about it, the worse this sounds.” I tried to adopt his authoritative tone, but it didn’t seem to work.
“What if you have the party at Mason and Fenn’s! They gave you the key.”
I tilted my head to one side. “Because I’m staying there to keep an eye on the contractors while they’re out of town and so I don’t have to pile into your house while Dad’s house is getting fixed, not so I can have a party.”
“Or maybe it’s because it’s destiny!” Rafe said excitedly. “You can have the party in the yard by the pool.”
“No, I could not.”
“Wait, I know! You can make it a surprise for them, for the day they get home! A ‘Congrats on Shacking Up’ party, to celebrate them cohabitating—”
“Think they call that a housewarmin’. I’m down!” Dale shouted so loudly that people on both sides of him flinched.
“The man has superhuman hearing,” Rafe muttered.
Dale yelled out to the bar in general, “I got a friend who makes toilet covers outta seashells and resin! Doc Mason’ll love ’em. Really liven their place up. Who wants to go in on a set with me for the housewarmin’ party?”
“Me ’n’ Tammy,” Mac Horne pronounced from the corner where he and a bunch of other bikers had congregated. “The Stallions MC’ll bring a keg to the party. Doc Mason was real helpful when Bobo burned his leg the other week.”
A blond guy wearing a patch on his leather vest that read “Bobo” lifted a beer in salute, and a couple of brothers made noises of agreement.
“I can bring a pasta salad!” Lorenna McKetcham called from a table just behind us. I turned to find the rest of the Mahjong Society nodding excitedly. “And Bernie’ll do her thing with her ambrosia! And Sosie makes a punch so strong you’ll be giving us ladies a second look, Beale!” She lowered her voice and added as an aside, “Not really, Sosie. Sexuality doesn’t work like that, so don’t get all excited.” In her loud voice, she said, “D’you know if they’re registered anywhere, boys? Or maybe I’ll just make them a condom wreath! Those are always a hit. But get back to me, okay?”
I gave her a taut smile and raised an eyebrow at Rafe, who grimaced.
There was no such thing as a small, intimate gathering on Whispering Key. If there was a party, the whole circus showed up.
“Silvio!” Dale called. “You down for Beale’s party?”
I widened my eyes and shook my head vehemently at Rafe, demanding that he do something about it, but he shrugged.
“Party?” Silvio asked. He looked up from the drinks he was prepping and gave me a quick smile before disappearing to the other end of the bar. “I’d love to.”
“I’ll make sure you’re added to the Facebook group,” Dale told him with a nod. “Hey, Mac, you boys got a Facebook?” He hopped off his stool to go plan a nonexistent party with a bunch of bikers, and I ran a hand over my face with a groan.
“You need to make this stop, Rafe.”
“Or maybe you need to go with the flow,” he countered.
I peered at him. “Who are you, and what have you done with my control-freak brother?”
“Come on. Isn’t your whole Universe-thing about being open to possibilities? To finding your soul mate?”
I shook my head. “Don’t joke about that.”
My soul mate, when he found me, was going to be sweet and, I imagined, a little shy. Possibly, but not necessarily, a virgin like me. Almost definitely a Capricorn, to be compatible with my Virgo traits. The sort of person more interested in waking up early to take the boat out and watch the sunrise than in catching it on his way to bed after a night of dancing. In short, the patient, careful, thoughtful lover I’d been waiting for.
And I wouldn’t have to go way outside my comfort zone to find him, because that was the antithesis of what a soul mate was.
“I’m very open to finding my soul mate, Rafael. I— ah, crap,” I muttered, pushing off the stool. “My bracelet!”
I’d been worrying my fingers over the beads, when suddenly the bracelet was gone and my wrist was naked. I must have flicked the clasp open somehow, but that had literally never happened in the four years I’d worn it.
I dropped to my hands and knees to search for it in the dim light.
“Hey, Rafe!” Dale called. “Take a gander at the television. Don’t that look like—?”
“No one,” Rafe said firmly a short while later. “It looks like no one. I have no idea who that is.” Which was funny since he prided himself on knowing every freakin’ answer to every freakin’ question Alex Trebek asked.
“Silvio, turn up the volume? I’m tellin’ ya, the guy looks an awful lot like—” Dale sounded bewildered.
“I think I’d know if that looked like someone I knew,” Rafe insisted, a little louder and a lot more strained than usual.
“Beale!” Dale yelled. “Get up here and look at this CelebTV Breaking News thing. I can’t hear who it’s s’posed to be, but this guy’s the spittin’ image of Rafe’s brother-in-law.”
Oh, jeez. No wonder Rafe sounded annoyed. Aimee’s brother ranked slightly above Aimee herself on Rafe’s List of Shit That Would Not Be Discussed.
“Busy,” I called.
I patted around the very sticky floor but couldn’t feel anything, and it was way too dark to see. What I did find was that, although my standards of cleanliness might be low, Blu Smoke’s were lower.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight.
“Jayd Rollins is not my brother-in-law anymore, Dale. And that’s not him, anyway.”
“But Rafe—”
“Leather pants look the same on everyone!”
I ran my flashlight beam over the wood floor, even patting under Rafe’s stool, but my bracelet was nowhere to be found. It was like it had just… disappeared.
I blew out a breath.
“Beale!” Dale insisted again.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I nearly brained myself on the underside of the bar, and I had bigger fish to fry than spotting some lookalike of Rafe’s ex-wife’s brother. “Still kinda busy here, Dale. Rafe, come help me look for my bracelet?”
But even with Rafe using his phone flashlight, too, and crawling around on the floor alongside me, my bracelet was nowhere to be found.
“Cheer up,” Rafe said distractedly as we left the bar a little while later. “Silvio said he’d keep an eye out for it. And maybe it’ll shake out of your clothes when you get home.”
I glanced down at my T-shirt, cargo pants, and boots and patted my pants pockets just in case. Nada.
I didn’t have a lot of possessions I cared about—a few books, a couple of bigger crystals, some photo albums—but this bracelet was special. It was more than just a bracelet of protective stones; it felt like a connection to my future. And while I wasn’t foolish enough to think I was cursed without it or anything, not having it made me feel sort of lost.