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Living History Illinois Flockify DM, Monday 05:15 PM
RenaissanceMom: Desperately need a dress made for Lincoln Masquerade Ball on Halloween. Too late? Happy to pay double what you charged last time.
SingerQueen: Good to hear from you! Hope the Outlander gown worked out.
RenaissanceMom: So many compliments!!! *heart eyes emoji*
SingerQueen: Awesome. Same measurements? Inspo pics?
RenaissanceMom: I’ll send a link to my Pinterest.
SingerQueen: Let me go check…
RenaissanceMom: What do you think?
SingerQueen: It’ll be tight, but let’s do it.
H ow is our Harv?” Micki asks later over pizza. “I miss him.”
I give her and Jaz a status report, and then I put my plate away. “You’re going to have to talk to me while I sew tonight.” I consult the list I made this morning where checkmarks adorn most of the tasks I set for myself. “I have two more outfits to finish, and then I have to start the commission I picked up today. Plus…” I hold up my phone for her to see.
“You’re on Insta?” Micki gapes. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. I’ve only been telling you to get on social media for a few years now.”
“I only have the one post so far. Do you think it was silly to put Cho in a dress for the pic?”
“No, it’s great. It’s your brand.” She beams at me and reads my caption out loud: “ Halloween is for everyone. Need ideas for your pets? Happy Paws can help. ”
“I like it,” Jaz says.
“What changed your mind?” Micki asks.
“I don’t know.” I replace the gray thread I used for a Sherlock-inspired tweed waistcoat earlier with a beige one. I’m working on Cogsworth’s brown suit for Cap. I’m also planning on making Belle’s yellow ballgown for myself. With three weeks until Halloween, I have my work cut out for me.
“Leo has a list of to-dos like that, too,” Jaz says, unprompted. “He keeps a notebook by the register.”
Micki stops chewing and taps her phone. Her lips curve into a smile at what she sees on the screen. “My ass you don’t know.”
I finish a seam before I look up.
“You’re telling me this”—she holds up today’s to-do list—“has nothing to do with a certain hunky store neighbor and his prolific social media presence. You’re kicking up the competition!”
My pulse quickens. “Let me see that.” I take the phone from her, and sure enough, she’s found Leo’s Canine King feed, which is somehow already full of artfully lit posts about the renovation, Tilly, and various product offerings. “He must be posting multiple times a day. How does he have time?”
Micki takes her phone back. “He probably uses a scheduling app. You should too.”
“Yeah, it’s easier to set aside a couple of hours once a week and schedule all your posts than to fit it in daily,” Jaz agrees. “Trust me. We all made that mistake in the beginning.”
“Not all of us.”
Micki blows me a kiss. “The fact that you’re almost twenty-eight and an Insta virgin is not something to brag about. Trust me on that, too.”
She scrolls the feed while I return to my sewing. My heart is slowly settling back to its normal rhythm when she suddenly lets out a crescendoing “Whaaaat?”
The fabric runs amok beneath my fingers, creating a bulging seam. “What is it now?”
“Why are you in Leo’s Insta feed?” Her eyebrows are halfway to her hairline. She shows me a picture from yesterday at the aunts’ house. Its primary focus is Tilly, but yep, that’s me and Cholula in the background. Fuck. I’m forced to explain everything, and I swear her eyes are heart-shaped at the end of it.
“He brought you home for Sunday lunch? This is moving faster than even I could have predicted.”
“Like I said—he was making up for getting us kicked out of the agility place.”
“But you agreed.”
“I had no choice.” I leave the table in a huff and busy myself with filling a glass with water.
“Oh, honey. There’s always a choice.”
“Fine, I made a professional choice. For Happy Paws. Is that better?”
“I think it’s cool,” Jaz says. “Sworn enemies working together. Gives me faith in humanity. Do you mind if I use that in my screenplay?”
“How is he with his aunts?” Micki asks. “I bet he’s annoyingly sweet and does the dishes and shit.”
I refuse to answer that. Micki hardly needs to know how on the nose that theory is.
“You should cut down on your Hallmark movie marathons,” I say instead, taking my seat again. “It was basically work. We were working.”
“Together…” she says in a sing-song voice.
“In the vicinity of one another.” I grab my seam ripper and start undoing the mess she caused. Her gaze is still on me, but I pretend not to notice.
Very slowly, she reaches across the table, puts a finger on my to-do list, and drags it back to her side.
I know what’s coming, so I brace myself.
“So, Mr. Professional’s got you stepping up your game. I see, I see.”
I lean back and rest my hands in my lap. “Is there something wrong with that? Maybe I don’t want to give our customers reason to find Happy Paws subpar.”
She smirks. “ Subpar , even. Sounds like he’s made quite an impression on you.”
“Pfft. Whatever, dude. Yes, maybe Leo’s inspired me to rethink how we’re doing things and fix what’s not working. And sure, he’s not ugly, he’s surprisingly helpful sometimes, he has a good relationship with his aunts, and is this… this business genius.” Yikes, I’m trying to convince her why I’m not interested, right? “But I’ve known guys like him. They never stop working. Always want to be the best. Everything is about what’s next.”
A flashback intrudes of the phone call when Evan, my college boyfriend of two years, informed me that he’d been accepted to grad school at Harvard and would be leaving after finals. We’d been looking at apartments together as recently as the week before, but his mind was made up, his priorities clear. Long-distance relationships never work out, babe. I scratch my forehead as if that will erase his parting line. “Even if Leo wasn’t my ‘sworn enemy,’ as Jaz so aptly described him, I don’t need that energy in my life.”
A look of studied innocence comes over Micki. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I gave it a go?”
“Um…” Why would she do that? She’s on at least two dating apps and has no problem getting dates. The images of Micki and Leo together that infiltrate my mind make my neck tense up. They’re too different. A messy ending would be inevitable. Not that it’d be any of my busine—
“That’s what I thought.” Micki grabs her plate and brings it to the sink. “Don’t worry, I was only kidding.”
I want to argue with her, but I’ve run out of words. Instead, I settle for telling myself the relief I feel has to do with my good friend avoiding potential heartache. Men like Leo Salinger should come with a warning.
Which reminds me. “Hey, Jaz, I’ve got a job for you. Of the clandestine kind…”
“Finally.” She leans forward. “You need something planted on his person? An anonymous threat called in to the store?”
“What? No.” I explain what I overheard at the farm. “I want to know what it is he has to ‘handle.’ See if you can find anything out.”
“On it. And if I find the letter, I’ll bring it to you ASAP.”
Micki groans. “Come on, Jaz…”
“Again, no,” I say, more gently. “No stealing. But if you see it, maybe peek at the sender or something.”
She frowns. “You’re definitely underutilizing my potential here.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No,” Jaz says in a hurry. “I’ll do it. A girl can only inventory so many bully sticks…”
Micki has been tapping her phone some more, and now she shows me the screen. “He has a personal account, too. Maybe you’ll find some clues there.” She scrolls down the feed. “Goes way back. Damn, he fills out a suit.”
“Stop it. I don’t want to stalk him like that.” I make her put her phone away, but just then mine chimes with a notification. @caninekingbatavia has followed me, and there’s one new comment on my post:
Nice dress. Does it come in a men’s size large? ;)
“Ha!” I clasp a hand over my mouth.
“You mean stalk him like he’s stalking you?” Micki gives me a pointed look before getting up and turning to Jaz. “Come on, sis. We’ve got to go. I’m beat, and my first client is at seven thirty tomorrow.”
After they’re gone, I clean up, trying to ignore my phone, which is face down on the table. I’m not going to do it.
I’m not.
I’m really not.
I’m… Oh, who am I kidding?
When I flip the phone over, there’s a notification for a message from Al, but tonight I have other things on my mind, so I swipe it away. Then I curl up in bed, take a deep breath, open Instagram again, and start scrolling.
Canine King’s account is pretty but too promotional for what I’m after. I find Leo’s personal one after a brief search, and right off the bat, it shows promise. His profile pic is a semi-casual portrait against a city backdrop. A small smile lingers as if the photographer said something funny, but the suit is all business, and Micki wasn’t wrong. It hugs his broad shoulders in that way only tailored garments do. I nod slowly to myself as a small flame flickers on in my belly.
The posts from this year are mostly of Tilly as a tiny puppy, Diane’s place, and selfies against sunlit cornstalks and barn walls. But going back to the beginning of the year, there’s a shift. Something must have happened because earlier posts are of bars and restaurants, groups of business-clad people, and cityscapes. There’s a close-up of a familiar Patek wristwatch at 1:50 a.m. with the caption Midnight oil , and another from Christmas two years ago of him on the phone in a red tie and Santa hat captioned Business and pleasure .
He used to do CrossFit (because of course he did), and I slow down my scrolling through those images to admire popping muscles I didn’t know existed. The flame grows inside me, sending trickles of heat between my legs. “Well done, Leo,” I whisper.
I go farther and farther back, his chiseled features flashing past in the feed, until I stop at a candid shot of him exiting a pool in some tropical location. The water drips off his tan skin, and the shorts cling to him in a way that makes me dig my teeth into my lower lip.
Without thinking, I slip my fingers underneath the elastic of my sweats and let them trail the hem of my panties. I sigh and scoot lower.
Leo’s face is slightly turned away, one hand smoothing wet hair off his forehead. My gaze roams the curves of his biceps, the smattering of fair hair across his chest, a six-pack highlighted by adoring sunlight.
I go lower between my legs and find the fabric damp already. Pressure is building.
His hands would probably know exactly what to do. They’re broad and strong, well-groomed, gentle. And he knows what he wants.
My eyelids flutter closed on a low moan, but as I relax into the fantasy, my phone slips, and I fumble it against my chest.
“Ah, no. Damn it.” I get hold of it again, turn it over, and what I see is the most effective cold shower. A big red heart.
I’ve accidentally liked his photo.