“What is going on?” Becky demanded. “Are you on drugs?”
I squinted up at her. “No, I am not on drugs.” I looked back at my computer. “I just had a good weekend.”
“Is it a girl?” She gasped into her hands. “Oh my God, if it’s a girl, it’s serious. Your horoscope today said your soul mate is in your midst!”
I scoffed. We had the same sign, and the idiot Becky was dating was definitely not anyone’s soul mate, let alone hers.
I waited a moment before replying, just to torture her.
Becky was practically gyrating.
“She’s a neighbor,” I said. “Her name is Vanessa, and we’re just friends.”
She squealed, obviously ignoring the just-friends part. “Oh my God! Okay, tell me everything. What does she do? Is she pretty?” Then she stopped bouncing and went serious. “You’re not acting all gloomy and Interview with the Vampire around her, right?”
I gave her a look as my cell phone rang. It was my PI returning my message.
“She’s a YouTuber. She’s beautiful. And again, we’re just friends,” I said, swiping the Answer Call button and putting the phone to my ear. “This is Adrian.”
“Tom Hillbrand here. Got your message.”
I swiveled my chair to give Becky my back. “Thanks for returning my call so quickly. The ring was stolen on Friday. A police report was filed with the Eagan police department by a Vanessa Price. Can you get access to that?”
Wind came through the phone like he was outside. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Any identifying features?”
“She said it’s got an inscription inside. ‘Kismet.’”
“Good. Makes it easier to know what I’m looking for. How hard do you want to hit this? I can get my guys over to the pawn shops easy enough, but if it’s not there, hunting this thing down could get expensive.”
I smoothed my tie down. “Whatever it takes. It has sentimental value. Just find it.”
“You got it. I’ll keep you posted.”
I hung up the call.
I didn’t tell Vanessa what I was trying to do. I didn’t want to get her hopes up. But if anyone could find this thing, it was Tom.
I swiveled back around to find Becky standing there like a marble statue. Her face had gone white. “You’re Jesus’s Abs,” she breathed.
I leaned over my desk for a pen. “What?”
“Jesus’s Abs,” she whispered. “Windowless white van guy. I can’t believe this is happening…”
“You can’t believe what is happening?” I asked, clicking the pen.
“This is the greatest day of my life. I’m in the presence of a hero.”
I hovered over a legal pad. “Becky, I’m going to give you five seconds to explain to me what you’re talking about, and then I’m going to need you to go,” I said.
“The girl you’re seeing is Vanessa Price? She talks about you. In her videos. Your abs are famous!”
I froze. “What?”
She was already pulling out her cell and then frantically typing into her screen. She held her phone out in front of me. “LOOK.”
The video was Vanessa, sitting in her bathroom, the morning I’d met her by the outfit she had on.
I watched it with wide eyes.
And then she was talking about me.
CHAPTER 11
TAKE THIS QUIZ TO SEE
WHICH OFFICE CHARACTER
YOU ARE!
VANESSA
It was 2:30 on Monday. Harry Puppins was sleeping in his diaper on his doggy bed in my bathroom. I had Grace’s stroller and was just grabbing my keys to run to the store when someone knocked on my door. I opened it to Adrian standing there with a cocked eyebrow, leaning an arm on the door frame in his suit, his tie loosened. “Jesus’s Abs?” He grinned.
He was watching more of my videos.
I beamed at him and put my hands up in a shrug. “I’m a teller of truths.”
He laughed. He was thoroughly amused by this. Thank God.
Even though I hadn’t given revealing information about him, I didn’t know if being fodder for my channel might bother him. It clearly didn’t.
And it was a good thing that he wasn’t weirded out by me talking about him, because my viewers loved him.
Sight unseen and mentioned once, Adrian was, by far, the most requested topic I’d ever had, short of my brief romance with Drake Lawless. They were begging for updates.
I was going to have to do another vlog, and soon.
He peered past me at Grace in her car seat. “Were you leaving?”
I looked over my shoulder and came back to him. “Yeah. I was going to go get a Christmas tree.” I paused. “Well, sort of. I can’t lug a whole tree up here by myself so I was going to Whole Foods to see if they had a little one in a pot or something.” I tilted my head. “Why don’t you have a tree? It’s December.”
“I don’t need a tree. It’s just me.”
I laughed. “So? It’s Christmas.” I tugged on the end of his tie. “Want to come with me?”
He glanced down the hallway and then came back with a smile that reached his eyes. “Well, I was going to go get an oil change for the windowless white van today, but I think I could fit this in.”
I snorted. “You’d better not let this thing go to your head. I have to talk about my life in my videos, and you’re ridiculously attractive. I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
He smiled and pushed off the doorway. “Give me five minutes to get changed.”
* * *
Adrian insisted that he drive again. His car was an itty-bitty slate-blue BMW coupe. We couldn’t fit the car seat in the back, let alone a Christmas tree. Not even one in a pot. So we took my GMC Acadia.
Despite his warnings that he drove too fast, he was being very careful and considerate with the baby in the car.
He smelled really good. His cologne or whatever he used was super fresh and it lingered in the car. I was breathing through my nose on purpose.
“Do you always get out of work this early?” I asked, as we idled at a red light. “You got out early last week too.”
“No,” he said, talking to the road. “I usually work late. I don’t get home until midnight sometimes. I’ll leave early if I need to take my grandma to the doctor, but that’s about it.”
“You go with your grandma to the doctor?”
“I used to. Up until October when she still lived here.”
Gah.
This man was amazing. Like, in every single way. Unless he had a micropenis he was self-conscious about, I couldn’t see why he wasn’t all over Tinder letting women climb him like a ladder. I’d climb this man no matter what he had in his pants.
Maybe he did have a micropenis…
Maybe that’s why he didn’t send dick pics…
Maybe that’s what he meant by shock and awe…
I gasped quietly and slid my eyes over to his lap.
“My assistant is obsessed with you,” he said, breaking into my thoughts.
I darted my gaze away from his crotch. “She’s not from Monett, Missouri, is she?”