A smug look fills her eyes. “I know for a fact you didn’t meet a client.”
“And how do you know that?” I ask, raising my brow. “You either paid someone at the tea shop to spy on me or you were hiding in the shadows watching me yourself.”
She pushes her chair away from her desk and crosses her arms over her chest. “A lady never reveals her sources.”
I narrow my gaze. “I’m going with an informant. The lure of the tea would have been too strong for you to lurk in the shadows of the back hallway.”
“Who was she?” she asks, excitement filling her eyes.
I let out a short laugh. “Obviously you didn’t hear everything if you’re that excited. You need a better source.”
She waves a hand. “Oh, I know you stomped out.” Then her enthusiasm bubbles up again. “I also know that her name is Molly. And she’s very pretty.”
“Did your source neglect to mention she’s a blogger?” I ask in a dry tone, but even as I say it, I realize “blogger” sounds too amateur for what Molly is up to. Still, I can’t bring myself to call her a journalist.
Confusion dampens Willow’s excitement. “You have something against bloggers?” Her eyes light up again. “Oh. My. God. Is she one of those interior design bloggers? Are we going to be featured online?”
“No,” I say with a groan. “God, I wish. She used to work for a dating website.”
“You mean like Tinder?”
“No. She dated for her job.”
She shakes her head in confusion. “She’s, like, a professional dater?” She sits up straighter, practically bouncing out of her seat. “Oh my God! That’s a thing? You can get paid to go on dates? How do I sign up?”
“Willow,” I say in a patient tone, trying to curb my frustration. “That’s called a call girl, and I don’t have the slightest idea how you can enter that profession. But that’s not what Molly does.” I shake my head. “Or did. Past tense. She used to write stories about dating men for her previous website, and now she’s trying to get a job at Rogue Word.”
A frown creases her forehead. “Rogue Word? No offense, Cal, but if she’s looking to do a dating story for them, it seems like she’d go on a date with a drug dealer or mobster.”
“She’s not doing a dating story for them, she’s—” I stop and shoot her a glare. “What the hell do you mean, ‘no offense’?”
“Well…you don’t exactly reek of ‘bad boy,’” she says with air quotes. The way she says it makes me sound lacking, like I’m a sad little puppy or a horse put out to pasture.
I nearly protest, then stop and ask myself why I’m about to defend my bad boy status when I clearly don’t have one. Nor do I want one.
“Look,” she says patiently. “You’re one of the good guys, and you deserve to date. You deserve to be with someone equally as nice as you.”
I release a short laugh, because one, I don’t deserve to date. And two—
“Molly is not nice.” But even as I say it, something in me protests that I’m wrong. No one is one hundred percent good or evil. There are layers to Molly O’Shea, and God help me, but instead of sending me running, something about that draws my interest.
Willow points her finger at me. “I saw that!”
“Saw what?” I ask in irritation.
“That moony look on your face. You like her.”
“I do not,” I say, realizing I sound like a toddler protesting a nap, but I can’t seem to stop myself.
“You do too! And don’t worry about your little fight,” she says, waving a hand in dismissal and then grabbing her purse out of her drawer. “Some of the best love stories start in conflict. Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox in You’ve Got Mail. Cher and Josh in Clueless. Lara Jean and Peter in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.”
“You realize you’re naming rom-com movies, not real-life examples?” I say dryly.
Her chin upturns as her brows shoot up. “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is both a movie and a book.”
“Like that makes it more realistic,” I say with a snort. “What about Romeo and Juliet? Cleopatra and Mark Antony? Bonnie and Clyde?”
“And you realize those are tragedies?” she asks as she moves toward the door.
“Exactly my point.”
“I’m off to meet the Burtons to pick out their light fixtures. Call me if you need me,” she says as she starts to turn the knob. Then she stops and turns back. Pushing out an exaggerated breath, she gives me a pitying look. “Everyone deserves love, Cal,” she says softly. “Even you. Alice has been gone three years now. It’s time to let her go and move on.” With that, she heads out the door.
I swallow the bitter laugh rising in my throat. She’s so wrong. Everyone is. They think I’m mourning my wife, but the night she died was the official end of our marriage. When I told her it was over.
Chapter Nine
Molly
Nosiness is next to godliness.
—Augusta Glower, Bad Luck Club
When I get home, Chaco is waiting for me at the door, pawing at it frantically and whining for me. She bursts out when I open it, like confetti from a party popper, and Ein gets up from his bed, slow and a little stiff, and whines for me too. It’s like having a geriatric child.
Which is to say, it’s kind of nice. I could get used to this.
Back home, the closest I had to a welcoming committee was my yearly infestation of ants, which got bad enough that I pitched a piece about speed dating pest control guys to Constance. She green-lit that, of course.
I give the dogs cuddles and love, but my mind is whirring.
Tina thinks it’s time for me to tell Maisie I’m sleuthing—“Look, family always knows when you’re keeping something from them. Hell, the first time I had sex, my brothers just looked at me and knew.”
I suppose she has a point. Now that I’ve seen Dottie and made contact with Blue, my sister’s going to find out sooner rather than later. She and her crew are so tight that they tell each other everything. And while their closeness is personally inconvenient to me at the moment, I feel strangely envious of it. After my epic conversation with Tina earlier, it struck me that I don’t have much of that in my life. Beth is a good friend, but she’s more of a mentee than a confidante. Most of her texts are about work.
It felt good talking to Tina, like I was forming a real connection, and she even suggested that we pay a visit to Mrs. Dahl together.
I agreed, obviously, because talking to Mrs. Dahl made me feel that ole’ writing itch, something that was never really satisfed by my blogging job.
So, yeah, Tina is a keeper, and her advice is on point. It’s just…I don’t think Maisie will approve of me poking around the Bad Luck Club, and to be honest, I still want her approval. I crave it in a way that makes me slightly sick, like eating too much chocolate. She’s my sister, but she’s also the closest thing to a parent I have left.
My heart pounding, I take the dogs out for a quick walk, smothering them with plenty of love, and then get them their dinners.