She scrolled through the texts and before she could read anything relevant, I yanked it out of her hand.
“Melissa,” Erica shouted, hand on her cheeks and blue eyes nearly popping out of her skull. “They’re dating.”
“We’re not.” I punched her shoulder. “We’re so not.”
She rubbed her shoulder but the punch didn’t wipe the ear to ear smile. “Then why are there, like, so many texts between the two of you?”
“We work together.”
“If it’s work let me read them,” Melissa said.
“No.” I dumped my phone back in my bag and zipped it.
“Hum-mm,” Melissa sang, “you shouldn’t be ashamed to like someone. Don’t take too long to own up to it. We don’t want history to repeat itself.”
I rolled my eyes. “History? Please don’t go down the Rob road again. We’ve had this discussion.”
“Things could have been different you know.” Melissa shook her head, lips pouting with disapproval. Immediately the shop assistant came to help her out of the dress.
“Future Mrs. Malcolm, do tell how history could have been different?”
“It’s future Mrs. Alford-Malcolm, I’m hyphenating,” Melissa corrected. “Going back to the Rob issue, you were the one who strictly said that it was sex—nothing else. So, he looked elsewhere.”
I laughed, loud, without a trace of humor. “Talk about twisting facts.” Indignant, I brought my hand to my chest. “You know very well what went down.”
“You shut him out like you do with every other guy,” Erica added. “If you’d opened up more…who knows?”
My eyes darted between the two mystified.
“But,” Erica continued, “it could be different if you admit to Ezra that you’re in love with him.”
“Wow! Slow down. In love? Who said anything about love?”
“Erica!” Melissa shot her a look. “Not that you are in love, just that you like him.”
“I—I,” I stuttered and swallowed. “I like him like a human being likes another.”
“Tell him that.” Melissa smiled. “I’d love to know if another human liked me in a humanly way.”
“Yeah, minus the human part,” Erica said. “Basically, tell him that you like him. Straightforward. Then jump on his neck and kiss him till his balls turn blue.”
They both started laughing, probably amused by the expression on my face. It was somewhere between getting mad and blushing stupidly.
My phone rang, and Dido sang the chorus of Stan. My lips twitched. I tried hard not to smile, however, as the song went on, I lost the battle.
“Aren’t you going to see who it is?”
I knew who it was.
“It’s Ezra,” Melissa said, giggling. “Look at her face. You got it bad, babe.”
“He has his own ringtone?” Erica chimed, attempting to sound offended. “You never programmed a ringtone for me.”
“Or me,” Melissa echoed, delight pooling in her eyes.
“Fuck you both.”
They laughed and I ran away from them to take the call.
“Hello,” I said, glad Ezra couldn’t see my face.
“To answer your text,” he said. “I’m actually having quite the morning. I just had a shower—”
I didn’t hear what he said next. I pictured him in the shower. Wet. Water dripping from his hair, rolling down his body. His skin slick. I could even smell his cologne.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “You were saying?”
“I was thinking about you. In the shower.”
“Cliché.”
He chuckled. “Busy?”
As I was about to answer, Melissa screamed, a high-pitched cry. I turned to see her and Erica skipping. “I found my dress,” Melissa screeched. “I found my dress.”
About time.
I grinned into the phone. “Not at all.”
“Would you like to accompany me on a little road trip?”
Driving around town had become a thing for us. We’d stroll around the streets of San Diego until the moon replaced the sun, and we’d talk about the dumbest things. It was simple but yet incredibly fulfilling.
“Only if you let me drive this time.”
“I hope that by drive you don’t mean drive us off a cliff.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed. “Text me where you are and I’ll come get you.”
It didn’t take long for him to arrive and as I anticipated, we spent the whole day listening to music and driving by the sea.
Chapter Sixteen
Ezra
My eyes were on the computer screen while my focus was on the hushed conversation Rowan was having with two SDPD officers. They kept the tone of their voices low. Now and then I grasped a few sentences when one of them raised their voices.
“Shit, shit, fuck,” Rowan snarled. “That cargo was worth a lot.”
Next, I heard the following phrases: Too much coincidence. Busted by. Nunes. We think … someone ratted on the other side. We did the best we could not to … suspicion.
Satisfied, I continued rerouting money into foreign accounts.
When Rowan walked out with the two officers, I pulled out my phone and sent out a text to Nunes.
Ezra: Do we have a deal?
Nunes: Working on it.
Nunes: I’ll be in touch.
I stowed my phone and kept working. Rowan returned and sat across from me with a wary expression.
I glanced up from the keyboard and arched a brow. “Everything all right?”
He cupped his jaw and smoothed his thick beard. “A shipment just got busted. Gotta call and deliver the news. Fuck!” He slammed his hand on the table. “I hate when shit like this happens.”
“It’s part of the game.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. The guys suspect someone on the other side had something to do with it.”
As long as they didn’t think or suspect that the leak came from someone on this side, or me, I was safe.
“How much longer?” Rowan prompted. “I need some good news today.”
“I’m almost done.”
My phone rang and I caught myself grinning at the sound of the ringtone.
“Who’s got you smiling from east to west.”
“My mother,” I lied, feeling protective of Christina.
If there was a person who I wanted to be unaware of her existence in my life, it was Rowan.
“Isn’t she dead or somethin’?”
“Something like that. I meant Claire, you know, Vinnie’s wife.”
Rowan knew my entire family, he even had pictures of them in his office. They were the weapon he used to keep me in line.
“She seems like a good woman. Aren’t you going to take it?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing important. I’ll call her back later.”
“Hmm,” he hummed and then continued to an office at the back of the restaurant.