Chapter 22 I Told You So
I TOLD YOU SO
As soon as I pick up the phone, I hit the app and call my grandmother.
She answers quickly with a cheerful, “Hello, my little munchkin.”
Talk about a blast from the past. “You haven’t called me that since I was five. You must really be in a pickle.” I check the location on the Mayday app. Coco is only a few blocks away. “Are you at The Supper Lounge on a Tuesday night?”
“Yes. I told you I’d be home later, munchkin. But the cat is fine, right?”
Right. The cat claw plan. I slide into fake-emergency mode as I stuff my wallet into my jeans pocket. “Priscilla broke a nail. She’s at the ER. She needs you.”
“No!” Coco shrieks so loud I jerk the phone away.
Sneakers slap against the concrete floor as Bellamy comes from the bathroom, tugging her ponytail higher looking at me quizzically.
“That sounds terrible,” Coco continues. “Well, I’m so glad the cat’s fine, but I feel awful that my aunt needs me tonight. In Boston, you say?”
That’s not at all what I said, but I follow Grandma’s lead. “Yes. Aunt Betty Boop’s cat needs you too. That’s the one who broke his fingernail. Toenail? Paw-nail?”
Bellamy arches a brow as she listens to me. Meanwhile, Coco is improving on the other end of the call.
“We need to charter a helicopter tonight. Yes, pick me up so we can make it to the air pad on time,” Coco replies. “To Boston we go.”
My grandmother and I are having parallel conversations, apparently. “I’ll tell Harvey to fire up the chopper. Also, I’m pretty sure with cats it’s just a claw or toenail. Not a paw-nail.”
“I so hope Aunt Betty will be okay,” Coco says.
“And Aunt Betty’s cat,” I add, but Coco has already hung up.
Bellamy cocks her head. “Let me get this straight. Your friend, sister, or buddy”—she sketches air quotes around all three—“needs your help with her aunt and her cat?”
“It’s my grandmother. Her cat, Priscilla, is fine, though.”
“That’s a new excuse for dashing off after sex.
Impressively creative,” Bellamy says sharply, grabbing her purse.
“But fair is fair. Women learn young how to use cats or aunts to slip away from uncomfortable dates. I simply had no idea guys used the same excuses. Although adding a helicopter was hardly necessary,” she says. “I got the hint.”
Are you kidding me? I grab her arm before she can storm away. “You think that was for my benefit? One, I don’t need a Mayday with you. Don’t want one. Two, that was my grandmother asking for help in code. And since you don’t believe me, you’re coming with me to fetch her.”
Bellamy’s hand flies to her mouth, but it’s too late to take anything back. “Oh, shoot, Easton. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head, still irritated. “You have more walls than an international border.”
“That might be true,” she admits, chagrined. “I’ll help rescue Grandma from a bad date any way I can.”
I huff. “You damn well better.”
The Supper Lounge is a few blocks away on Sixth Avenue, so there’s time to walk and talk. But the second we step outside the warehouse, Bellamy’s phone rings. She holds up a finger to me, then answers it.
“Hey, Bryn,” she says, sliding into a professional voice as we walk along Nineteenth Street, then she’s quiet as she listens.
“I appreciate you calling me back, especially at night,” she says finally.
Another pause. It lasts nearly a minute, until we’re nearing the crosswalk.
“Definitely,” she tells the caller with a crisp nod. “I can be there Thursday afternoon.”
Silence.
“I appreciate you making time for me so quickly. Thank you.”
Another pause as we reach the intersection, then Bellamy laughs. “So glad Bruce is doing well with Queen LaTofu. I had a feeling about those two. It’s nice to know they’re in kitty love.”
My brows climb at that, and Bellamy thanks the woman and hangs up. “Cat affairs,” she explains.
“Sounds like quite a lot of feline tomfoolery going on.”
“It does seem that way.” She segues back to that more businesslike tone. “Bryn used to head up The Dating Pool. She works as a consultant now.”
I don’t ask if Bellamy is setting up an interview with the woman because I don’t want to bring up the podcast after our piano encounter. I’m more interested in why Bellamy needed a hot hate fuck.
I know why I did—the woman pissed me all the way off, and I can’t get her out of my head.
We’re not going to become a thing. Bellamy and I are on opposite sides of the romance ring in every way, professionally and personally.
She wants big, epic romance. I don’t.
Case closed.
I should say goodnight so we can go our separate ways. Let her off the hook for fetching Coco.
And yet, I don’t want to.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Grandma,” I say. “Mostly to hear you say, you were right, Easton. I have a reputation to uphold as a ‘cocky fucker.’ Your words.”
“Hmm. I believe I called you cocky. Not sure I used the work fucker.”
“Poetic license,” I say. “Though, I’d say it fully applies, now.”
“Art imitating life, I suppose.”
“No. The other way around.”
“Fair point,” she says. “And since you are a cocky fucker—now officially my words—you can’t wait to say I told you so.”
I tap my chin. “That’s not true. I can definitely wait. Because it’s going to be so very satisfying,” I say, then I lean closer, coast a finger along her cheek. “Like fucking you was.”
She shivers, and I file that away.
Oh, yes, I can wait for my you were right.
We round the corner and reach The Supper Lounge. I push open the heavy doors and usher Bellamy inside, where we hunt through the crowd for my elegant grandmother.
A swing band plays on a low stage in the corner, and the notes of a saxophone float over the tables. “Bet she’s out with some suit,” I mutter. “She can’t resist guys in suits.”
Bellamy shoots me a flirty side-eye stare. “A sharp-dressed man is catnip,” she says, her gaze traveling along my tailored shirt.
I tug on the collar. “Only a bit wrinkled from when this wildly sexy woman who detests me nearly tore it off.”
“She must really hate you.”
“It’s a deep and abiding kind of hate,” I say.
“The type of hate that runs bone”—she licks her lips—“deep.”
I’d give the woman a slow clap for that if she wouldn’t think I was sucking up to her. “The irresistible kind,” I say instead.
We weave through tables, scanning for a high-fashion grandmother with gunmetal-gray hair.
“There she is,” Bellamy declares.
I look at her in surprise. “You recognize my grandmother?”
“Saw her at the party.” She points, and lo and behold, there’s Coco, wedged between . . . two women?
Huh.
That’s not what I expected.
“I bet her date brought his sisters along,” I grumble. “See? Online dating is crazy.”
“Because of the possibility a date might bring his sisters? That makes no sense, Easton.”
“No, because people surprise you in weird ways. The other week, her date brought his adult kids. I swear . . .”
“All dating is weird,” she says. “Not just online dating.”
We reach my grandmother, sandwiched between two harmless-looking little old ladies. When she spots me, Coco beams through her tiger-print eyeglasses. “Is the chopper ready, munchkin?”
“Yes, Harvey said to . . . chop, chop.”
“Ah,” she says, then explains to her companions. “Helicopter talk for time to skedaddle.”
The curly-haired woman to her right frowns. “Are you sure you have to go? I wanted to tell you my mulch recipe. It’s fantastic for New York gardens.”
“How wonderful,” Coco says as she slinks out of the booth.
The redhead grabs her arm. “One more thing. Be sure to save your cardboard. For the mulch. I can bring you some of mine if you want to try it.”
Coco taps her temple. “Email me all the details.”
Then, skedaddle we do. A minute later, we hit the street, and my grandmother breathes a huge sigh of relief. “I thought I’d never escape.”
I give her a look that says what gives. “I thought you were on a date gone bad.”
She scoffs. “Dates I can handle. Boring friends from college are the worst. That was Ursula and Dolores, and they’re simply dreadful.
I got snookered into meeting them when they mentioned how much fun we’d had in our sorority.
” She shakes her finger. “But let that be a lesson—old memories do not forecast new ones. I was bored senseless. Mulch. I’m not sure how I survived. ”
Beside me, Bellamy chuckles under her breath.
“Let me get this straight,” I say to clarify. “You called in a Mayday because you were bored?”
My grandmother stares sharply at me, no joking in her blue eyes.
“Isn’t that what Maydays are for, dear? I don’t have much time left on this earth.
I can’t spend it being un-entertained. I wanted to talk about sex and music and cocktails.
But I also didn’t want to offend them. Decorum matters.
” With that, she turns to Bellamy and offers her hand.
“I’m Coco Ford. I recognize you from the party. ”
“Pleasure to meet a woman of such high standards. I’m Bellamy Hart, and I love a good Moscow Mule.”
“I’m a martini gal all the way,” Coco says as they shake hands. Then she glances from me to Bellamy. “But did I interrupt something?” Her eyes widen, and she wags a finger at me. “I did. I am a bad, bad woman.”
Ah. I see now. Coco is a little drunk. “Time to get you home, Grandma,” I say.
“But I’m just getting to know Bellamy. Bellamy, dear, come with us. We have so much to talk about.”
Dear God, don’t let it be sex.
The devil woman’s eyes light up. “Can you tell me stories about what Easton was like as a kid?”
I smother a groan. That topic is only marginally better.
Coco grins—wickedly, of course. “So many delicious tales. Where to start . . .”
By the time the cab drops us off at Coco’s Upper East Side brownstone, Bellamy has heard about how, when I was twelve, I took my father’s red Triumph for a joyride and crashed it into a mailbox.
Two states over.
She’s learned how, on a European vacation, my family traveled from Paris to London via the train under the English Channel, and I convinced my sister that the Eiffel Tower was in England.
Bellamy looks at me with a twinkle in her eye. “You were full of mischief, Easton Ford.”
“Guilty as charged,” I say.
“So much mischief,” Coco seconds as she leads us into her three-story brownstone. “Do you want to see pictures of him as a kid?”
Bellamy gleefully eats this up as we cross the foyer. “Of course.”
Grandma beckons my archenemy down the hall to her bedroom suite. I start to follow, but she stops me with a raised hand. “You go wait in the living room. We’ve got girl talk to do.”
“Yes, munchkin,” Bellamy taunts with poorly hidden laughter. “We’re going to gab.”
But before she turns away, she mouths, You were right.
I laugh and mouth back, I told you so.
And, yes, it’s very satisfying.
In the living room, I pour myself two fingers of scotch from the decanter on the bar table, then flop onto the couch. I grab The Bonfire of the Vanities from the coffee table. As I open it, reading idly, bits and pieces of the conversation in Grandma’s room float through the spacious home.
“Could he have been any preppier?” Bellamy asks.
“No, dear. He could not. Not even if he’d owned the entire Izod company.”
A few moments later . . .
“Of course he plays blackjack.”
“And he never loses, I swear. He’s got the Midas touch at the tables.”
And after that . . .
“Oh, this is a sweet shot by the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“Yes, that’s him and Anna. May she rest in peace.”
I freeze, glass midair.
There’s a pause, then Bellamy repeats somberly, “May she rest in peace.”
I still don’t move, imagining Bellamy’s checking out a picture of me with a woman I was in love with once upon a time.
But they quickly move on and are talking about music—Cole Porter versus Cyndi Lauper—as I finish the drink and set it down with a yawn, turning a page in the book.
There’s something so natural about Bellamy chatting with Coco, even after angry sex with me.
Bellamy and I don’t see eye to eye, and while that pissed me off earlier, I’m not so annoyed now. Maybe that’s the Great Sex Effect?
Or maybe it’s the Coco Effect. It’s endearing in ways I didn’t expect, hearing the two of them debate Ella Fitzgerald versus Pink. Funny that Bellamy likes Ella and Coco picks Pink.
I flip another page, but the words start to blur as I sink deeper into the soft pillows of the couch.
“I heard your podcast about Carpe Diem,” Coco says, like it’s a delicious secret. “So scathing.”
“Was it too much?” There’s a hint of regret in Bellamy’s tone. Does she wish she hadn’t aired the piece this afternoon?
“Darling, never apologize for speaking your mind. It’s something that women really ought to do every day. In business and in love.”
“You know, I think you’re right,” Bellamy says, her tone confident, the voice of someone who just made a big decision.
I’m not sure what that might be, but I doubt I’ll puzzle it out further tonight. Not with my eyes floating closed as the exhausted bliss of great sex finally catches up with me.
When I wake up to the sun peeking through the window, Bellamy is gone.