Lag (The boys of RDA #2)(21)
“Yeah, intense. That’s a good way to describe Trey.” Aspen hasn’t taken her eyes from me, but she closes her mouth.
I’ve finished my sugary bread and put the plastic fork and Styrofoam container back in the bag.
Marissa does the same with hers. “Isn’t the Tahiti French toast spectacular? We’ve been eating it for months. We need to branch out, but it's so good and I’m so lazy. Why give up a good thing?”
“I suggest we find somewhere indoors this winter when it gets cold. It’s already too cold if you ask me.” Aspen wraps her hands into the sleeves of her pink parka.
“Hmm,” Marissa mulls over her comments in thought. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here, Simone. In case you decide you want to do more than elbow Trey in the balls, I’ll help you move the body. All of us are only a phone call away.”
Aspen laughs and rolls her eyes at the spunky brunette. “Marissa, don’t scare her away. She’ll think you’re serious.”
“I am serious.” She turns back to me and in the most no joke manner says, “True friends will always help move the body."
“I would.” Amanda doesn’t look up from her task of collecting her breakfast remnants but answers too quickly and a bit too excitedly if you ask me. "Plus, Aspen’s brother is a cop. He’d help us get away with it. I bet he knows more than one great hiding place in the city.”
Marissa claps her hands together once. “See? Amanda gets it. I knew there was a reason I liked you right away,” she says to the blonde who perks up even more at her words.
“They’re kidding,” Aspen promises me. “Except for my brother. He is a cop, but there is no way he’d help hide a body.”
Amanda lies back on the blanket but sits up immediately when her head hits the dewy grass. The fog over the city has started to lift, but there are still large parts covered by the low lying clouds. I’m taken by the view from our vantage point and promise myself to spend time enjoying everything San Francisco has to offer.
“So what are we doing this afternoon?” Aspen asks the group and the conversation turns to various options available on a Sunday in the city.
As the girls, my first friends in San Francisco, debate the merits of ice cream when it’s only fifty degrees out to indoor shopping, I sit and take in the open friendship they all share. I haven’t had a close relationship like theirs since college and even then they were more superficial. I lost contact with my roommate after graduation and never made close friends with any of my coworkers in New York. There was never time.
Indoor activities win out over anything outside, and Marissa and Aspen argue over which season of Supernatural they finished last weekend and if they should pick up the new one today. I wouldn’t mind some Dean time, but before I throw in my two cents, my phone dings.
The noise doesn’t interrupt either of them as they continue to argue, but I reach for the phone in my back pocket to read the text message.
TREY: How’s it going? Aspen’s friend Marissa is kind of scary. Don’t upset her.
His warning, not being far off, makes me laugh and shake my head at him even though he can’t see me.
ME: We’re discussing good places to hide bodies.
A few minutes pass before his next text vibrates my phone.
TREY: I leave you alone with her for two minutes and this happens? Whatever you do, don’t tell her about almost taking off my balls. I’ll never live it down.
ME: Oops. Sorry.
I don’t need to be beside him to know he’s shaking his head at me and running his thumb back and forth across his jaw in the way I catch him every so often. I love the fact he’s in a more playful mood than he was this morning. I’ve never seen a man so unpredictable before.
TREY: I have to fix a bug at the office. It could be a few hours. Do you want me to take you home?
No stranger to work on a weekend, I understand but it still stings a bit. Aspen is great, but I’d hoped to spend some time with Trey today.
Me: No, I’m okay. I’ll hang out here, figure out the best burial spots.
Trey: Okay, if you change your mind let me know. And remember, I’m tall so the grave needs to be longer than normal.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The black door to the Escalade closes behind Trey and he clicks his seatbelt into place before our driver, the same guy from Sunday, makes it back to his position behind the wheel.
“Will you tell me where we’re going now?” I question.
Around lunch when he asked to pick me up from work and promised to provide me with dinner, I didn’t hesitate in my answer. Now, I’m slightly nervous. Never mind. Slightly nervous went out the window an hour ago. The deadline inched closer and closer, and I sailed right into freaking the hell out.
Trey leans toward me to look out the window on my side. “We’re going to do a quick touristy thing and then dinner at my place.”
“Should I change my shoes?” I lift the leg closest to him to show off my bright red Jimmy Choo heel. I’m a New Yorker. I'll walk in heels anywhere when needed, but I’d rather save my feet if I can.
Trey sighs when he sees my shoe. “Unfortunately, yes. While I hate to see them go, you’ll want to be more comfortable.” His finger presses on the bare skin below the strap around my ankle.