A Wild Ride (Jessica Brodie Diaries #3)(25)

“I think we are meeting everyone tonight. You in?”

“What else would I be doing?”

“Counting to the ninth toe, then getting stuck and having to start over…”

“Shut up.”

After an absurdly long night, where I’d sat next to Jasmine, not realizing Lump was avoiding her and why, I left the bar early and stopped in on Gladis on the way home to check on her. Lump had been right, she just had a sore muscle, but she was happy for the attention.

That done, I continued on to the cottage, happy to have a quiet second away from drama.

Turned out, Jasmine and Moose weren’t doing so well. She was spending more and more time with her girls, and he was on her case about it. They bickered and fought, not agreeing on much, but sitting next to each other in order to pick on the other. When Moose got fed up and walked away, Jasmine would try to talk all kinds of crap. She'd say things like he was smothering her, or how he just wasn’t cutting it anymore, and how he stopped being all that great in bed.

That was about when I tried to pull the ejection lever by going to the bathroom and getting lost. She followed, though. She hooked up to me like a trailer, not letting me disappear for any length of time. What’s worse; Lump wouldn’t break me out.

I did feel for Jasmine. She was looking for the courage to break it off. That much was obvious. Everyone but Moose saw it. But the bottom line was, Moose was my friend, and she was his girlfriend. My loyalties lied with him. I didn’t want to hear his faults because to me he didn’t have any. It was a hopeless situation.

I walked into the cottage and stepped aside as Fred took off, sprinting like the devil was on his tail. He needed to do a perimeter check, and I needed a glass of wine. And a book. Sucks that it was Saturday and I was home early, alone, but it was better than being stuck between a couple on the verge of breaking up.

I sighed and went to my shelves. I had a murder-mystery that Lump gave me that needed to be read. I usually hated that kind of story; there was one sure way to convince me that a boogey-man was in my house, and that was a book telling me it was true. By the end I’d be jumping at shadows and accusing Gladis of murdering one of the maids. But I had nothing else besides historical non-fiction, so murder it was.

My phone rang and my heart thumped. William!

“Hi babe!” I said excitedly.

“Wow, that was a better reception than this morning.” He sounded tired.

“You called at six o’clock this morning. No one gets a nice reception at six o'clock.”

He laughed through the phone. “I know. I just don’t have a lot of time during the day.”

“Are you on your way home now?”

“To my hotel, yeah. I have more to do—I’m trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. But I can do paperwork from there.”

“How’s it going?”

He gave me a big sigh. I had a feeling he was rubbing his eyes. “Slowly. We don’t have a great team of management out here. They aren’t in to working real hard. But I am pushing and they are responding. Slowly.”

“Do you think you’ll get to come home in another week?”

“Yes.” He said it so firmly I had a feeling he would play Russian roulette with whoever was holding up the show before he committed to stay longer.

“Well, I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, baby. A lot. How’s Gladis?”

I told him about Adam botching the news that morning, and the actual outcome.

“She needs to take it easy, but there’s no telling her that,” he concluded. He was moving around—probably in his hotel room now, getting comfortable. Which gave me an idea.

“Phone sex?”

William laughed. “I want to but I can’t. I have a pile to get through tonight so I can make my meetings tomorrow. All goes well, which it will, I can make it home to you and have some real sex.”

“I bet we could be super quick.”

“Oh, it’d be quick. But then I’d fall asleep. I can’t fall asleep. Not for another few hours.”

“It’s already ten o’clock.”

“Speaking of, why are you home so early? Couldn’t find any single guys to hit on?”

“Brad was around. I could’ve hit on him if I wanted.”

“But then Jane would be after you.”

“Yeah, there’s that. No, Jasmine glued herself to my side and talked shit about Moose all night.”

“I heard about all that. Moose is pretty tore up about it. He doesn’t understand what the problem is. He’s trying to fix it.”

“He won’t. It’s a done deal. She just has to tell him.”

“Think so?”

“Know so.”

“Hmm.” I heard him shift. “It sucks. Glad I’m not him.”

“If I didn’t miss you so much, I’d play into that comment.”

“Where are you?”

“In my reading chair.”

“Fred?”

“Scouting the perimeter, just like you taught him.”

“Dobes do that naturally. What are you wearing?”

“Nothing but a pair of socks.”

I heard an intake of breath. Then, “Where is your left hand?”