All’s Fair in Love and Warrants (Pleasure Point #5)
Chapter 1
Avery Hunter’s Reporter Notebook: Unicorns are real, y’all.
MsWrite
Food for thought: Hot doctors probably never get an accurate pulse reading.
ByTheBook
100%
MsWrite
Are you a doctor?
ByTheBook
God no.
MsWrite
You’re going to keep me guessing?
ByTheBook
Give the woman a prize!
MsWrite
Not fair. I told you what I did for a living.
ByTheBook
“Telling people what they need to know and what they want to know” is not a job title.
MsWrite
But mysterious, no?
ByTheBook
Indeed. Are you one of those women who judge a man based on his job title and salary?
MsWrite
Clutch the pearls.
No.
But I do like to know the person I’ve been matched with isn’t living out of a car.
ByTheBook
I can assure you. I do not live out of a car.
MsWrite
Own or rent?
ByTheBook
My car? I own that.
MsWrite
Touché.
ByTheBook
I own my own home.
MsWrite
I just got all tingly in my nether regions.
ByTheBook
Nether regions?
I did not realize we would be sexting today.
MsWrite
ByTheBook
How many unicorns do you think you could carry on an average day?
MsWrite
That’s easy—all of them.
ByTheBook
Explain, please.
MsWrite
Unicorns aren’t real.
ByTheBook
Really? Then why are they the national animals of Scotland?
That can’t be right. I immediately began searching for this piece of trivia and was not surprised to find it true. ByTheBook has been a delight since we matched on the Ship Yes app, and he’s never been wrong. I might find it annoying if he wasn’t so cute about it.
“What’s got you chuckling over there?” Thorn, my friend and partner at the Pleasure Point Network, stood in the doorway to my office with a cup of coffee in his hand. It was from The Grinding next door, and if I knew my friend, he got me the Pumpkin Spice Latte, even though it was March.
I reached for it with gimme hands, and he laughed as he set the recyclable cup on my desk. I smiled and sniffed the pumpkin spice goodness that always sent goosebumps over my scalp. “Ah. Thank you, Thorny.”
My longtime friend flopped into the visitor’s chair and grunted as his backside landed on a hard stack under a sweater. He hopped back up, removed the books, and unceremoniously dropped them on the floor before sitting back in the chair.
“No. Really. Put those anywhere.” I rolled my eyes.
“Like you care,” Thorn retorted. He looked around my office, which is comfortably lived in. “You’re going to give yourself claustrophobia in here.”
I leaned back in my desk chair, sipped my latte, and looked at the office with fresh eyes.
Okay, fine. So a few books could be put back on the shelves.
And my brand-new awards were hiding under some clothing I forgot to take home with me the other night.
The floor was a little dusty and could use a good sweeping, but I’ve been busy.
Plus, the trip to my apartment was so long - up a whole flight of stairs. It wasn’t worth the trouble.
I shrugged. “It’s comfortable.”
He raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.”
“What brings you in today? Don’t you and Joy have secret plans to make?” I teased.
Ever since those two got together, there have been times I’ve walked in on them in the middle of something.
Not like that. I'm pretty sure they’re more of a “behind closed doors” kind of a couple.
But the secrets. They’re up to something, and my journalist spidey-sense has been pinging big time for the last few months.
He raised a shoulder. “Nothing today, but she wanted to invite you to dinner tomorrow night. My mother will be there.”
I sat up straighter in the chair. Maxine was one of my favorite people on the planet.
I’d known her almost as long as I’ve known Thorn.
She wears her Old Money Attitude as well as her signature pearls.
And I couldn’t remember a time she didn’t hold a teacup or a martini glass in her hands. Mostly the martini glass.
“Maxine? That’s awesome. I haven’t seen her in almost a month.”
“Yeah. Your monthly lunch dates.”
I grinned at Thorn. “You’re jealous.”
“Do you talk about me?”
Totally jealous. I chucked a pen at his head. “Egotistical much? You know the answer to that.”
He caught the pen and grinned. “You still haven’t told me what you were laughing about when I came in.”
I tilted my head. My longtime friend knew almost as much useless trivia as I did. “Do you know the national animal of Scotland?”
Thorn tapped his chin. “The unicorn.”
My jaw dropped. “How does everyone know this but me?”
“Some say it’s because unicorns were the only animal that could defeat the English lions,” Thorn said. “I think it’s because the Scots like being different.”
“Maybe.”
“So, dinner?” Thorn asked.
“Maybe. Depends on when I get back from the county courthouse,” I said, pulling up my digital calendar. “I have a block of time with the records room tomorrow afternoon.”
Thorn’s blue eyes danced. “Researching something interesting?”
“Yeah. The founding of Pleasure Point.”
Thorn’s eyes hooded, and I watched his hackles go up. “You’re not—”
I raised my hand. “No. Stop. I’m not going to expose the Bloody Mary Maul treasure link. I’m talking about the original Pleasure Point Nudist Colony and Resort.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” I stood and tried to pace my office, but to my chagrin, it was a little crowded. “Aren’t you curious about the man who sold the entire island to The Seven? Someone who - and I’m quoting here - ‘wanted to get out of the naked game?’”
“I guess.”
“You guess? It’s a mystery, Thorn. And we’ve been here long enough that I’m surprised neither of us has cracked this one.” I flopped back into my chair with a huff.
“What’s gotten into you?”
I sighed. What has gotten into me? “I don’t know.”
Thorn eyed me. “Island fever is real, you know. When was the last time you left Pleasure Point?”
“I went to the grocery store last week,” I said.
“In Flamingo Cove.”
“So?” I shrugged. “What’s that got to do with the price of eggs, even if they’re sky high right now?”
“Nothing. But I do know if you don’t get off the island once in a while, like way off the island, you’ll go batshit crazy. This place is too small and nosy for you to be stuck in hermit mode,” Thorn warned as he rose from the chair.
“Fine. I’ll schedule something for this weekend.”
“But after family dinner, right?”
I glanced up at the ceiling and pinched the bridge of my nose. He would hound me until I said yes. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
“Great!” Thorn knocked twice on the doorframe. “See you tomorrow night. Seven o’clock.”
He disappeared into the hallway. I picked up my latte and swiveled in my chair to look at the framed picture of the last time I went skydiving.
The crystal clear sky and bright colors of my jumpsuit were nothing compared to the giant grin on my face.
My dive partner took that as we plummeted to the ground at 120 miles per hour.
It was such a great day, but it had been too long since I took a leap.
Maybe Thorn was right. I was getting a little claustrophobic on the island.
It’s a beautiful place off the Gulf Coast of Florida.
But everyone in Pleasure Point knows your business and is happy to get all up in it.
And it seemed every time I turned around, there was some sort of game night in Town Hall. Not that I’d ever been invited.
I rubbed my chest and glanced back at the Ship Yes app.
A computer engineer developed the relationship app to cut through the bullshit of dating apps.
The owners contacted the media a few months ago and encouraged us to test it.
We were asked to write about it and share it with the world if we liked it.
I didn’t get a match, but I shared the story on our news website anyway.
It was intriguing. An A.I. combed through your social media feeds and created a profile for you. Then, the app used that data to find your perfect match.
No endless hours of scrolling. No catfishing. And no married or “separated” folks who are still married but trying to cheat. The designer created it so it would weed out married assholes.
But the app also left off the pictures. So, you had no idea what your perfect match looked like.
I forgot all about it until ByTheBook popped up a few weeks ago. He’d been a breath of fresh air. Polite. Smart. Exact words. The way he wrote was downright sexy.
I pictured a hot librarian who wore thick, black-framed glasses like Clark Kent.
Librarian in the streets. Superman in the sheets. The thought of it made me wiggle in my seat a little.
My phone rang.
Langston Hunter.
I took a deep breath and swiped open the phone. “Hey, Dad.”
“Why haven’t you returned Micah’s phone calls?” He demanded right out of the gate.
I sighed. It was going to be one of those conversations. “Hello, Dad. Thank you for calling. It’s so nice to have these chats. The answer is: because I ended it with him, Dad.”
“Why would you break up with a perfectly respectable lawyer from my firm, Avery?”
“Dad. That perfectly respectable lawyer is still married!”
“He’s separated,” my dad said as if that made it okay.
“Separated,” I snorted. “Yeah, right. Dad. The man is still living in the house with his wife! They’re not even sleeping in separate bedrooms. He sleeps in the bed with her!”
“It’s Tampa! Apartments aren’t cheap,” Dad responded.
“Listen to yourself! He’s a lawyer at your firm, Dad. He has the money to not only go through with the divorce if he so chooses but also find suitable housing for himself that doesn’t involve dicking down his wife every night.”
“Avery Langston Hunter! It’s no wonder you’re still single with that mouth,” Dad tutted. “I hand you a perfectly suitable candidate for marriage, and you throw it in my face! I didn’t raise you to be this contrary!”
My phone vibrated against my face. I pulled back to look at the screen. A message from ByTheBook appeared, and I forgot all about Hot Mess Micah.
“Dad. You’re right. You didn’t raise me to be contrary. You didn’t raise me at all. The nanny did. Gotta run. Lots of work to do.” I ended the call before he could respond.
My father is the best litigator in Florida, and he could argue paint off the wall if he tried.
I was well aware of how that conversation would go if I continued.
It would mean giving Micah “one more chance,” even though all the social media evidence pointed to Micah and his wife recently celebrating their 20th anniversary with fanfare.
It made me sick.
I swiped open Ship Yes.
ByTheBook
Did you discover I was correct?
MsWrite
Of course. As usual. I don’t know why I even looked it up.
ByTheBook
You did say something about “trust but verify.”
MsWrite
Facts.
Do you think this is weird?
ByTheBook
What? Us talking over an app where we have never seen each other’s faces?
Why would that be weird?
MsWrite
Okay. Fine. Yes. That’s weird.
But also - not.
ByTheBook
I understand that. There is too much pressure to judge a book by its cover or decide whether to talk to someone or even date them.
Did you know the average person spends one to ten seconds looking at a profile before deciding to swipe?
MsWrite
Not even going to look that up. I believe you.
ByTheBook
You could be the best person in the world, but if your photo is anything but perfect, people will swipe.
MsWrite
And then men get mad when women use filters.
ByTheBook
Exactly. They say they want perfection, but when women give it to them, they complain.
ByTheBook was right about that. I took a deep breath and sent the message I’ve wanted to send since talking with my match on day one.
MsWrite
Do you think we should meet?