Chapter 3
Six months later
Finnegan’s was a surprisingly good place to do my homework.
I’d found a new seat, of course, because I had that private investigator urge to sit in a corner where I could see all the comings and goings.
In this case, I took the last stool at the bar, a spot in the corner that gave me a clear view of the entrance, the other side of the room that held booths and soccer memorabilia, and, of course, everyone who’d bellied up to the bar.
“You a paralegal yet?”
“No, Havisham. I’m about halfway through all the classes I need,” I said without looking up from my laptop. “But Attorney Lawless has me doing odds and ends and is holding a spot for me.”
“Well, hurry up. I can’t believe I’ve made it this far without legal trouble.”
I could.
She might’ve been petite, but anyone who wasn’t at least a little scared of Havisham didn’t have any sense in this world. The woman could stop a bar fight by raising her left eyebrow one millimeter.
I’d incurred her wrath once by asking her if she’d been named for the Dickens character in Great Expectations.
No answer but a hard stare and intense eye contact while she put the cheap bourbon in my Old-Fashioned.
Considering how rare the last name was, I wondered if she’d legally changed her name at some point, possibly out of the spite that had bonded us.
One thing I did know was that she, much like me, had vowed to never marry, something she’d told me on the night that would live on in infamy. She hadn’t volunteered her rationale, but we’d been kindred spirits ever since, despite my ever-growing curiosity.
“Any luck working things out with the Douchecanoe?” she asked.
Havisham called most people by their last name. I suspected she’d spent some time in the military, but mainly she wasn’t that keen on her first name, Aurelia. She called my former partner “the Douchecanoe” because she said he was both harmful to women and exceedingly unnecessary.
“Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
“He owns the house. He owns the PI business. All I have are my car, my student loans, and my freelance connections.”
Another woman might lecture me on the stupidity of being in such a position, but Havisham merely pressed her lips together tightly. She knew. We all knew. It was always easier to blame women for the precautions they didn’t take than it was to blame men for the harm they caused.
“Well, that’s enough of him, then. May his pillow never have a cool side, and may his bare feet find any Legos that happen to be on the ground.”
I snorted. “You are a paragon of kindness.”
“I only wish for him what he so richly deserves.”
With that she sauntered to the far side of the bar to tend to a new patron.
I turned my attentions back to my online course on legal research.
Thanks to my prior training as a private investigator, I knew more than the basics of research—just not the specifics of legal research.
As for writing? I hadn’t done formal writing since college, but I had written tons of reports for our—scratch that, Ken’s—PI business, and I’d also kept a self-indulgent blog once upon a time.
Legal research reminded me of the proofs we used to do in geometry class: Identify the jurisdiction, write down the facts, and figure out the legal issue—then make your case, step-by-step, using statutes and case law.
I was parsing the details of my sample case in an effort to define the legal issue when a guy reeking of cologne slid into the seat beside me and glanced over his left shoulder to the hallway that led to the bathroom.
I took a sip of Malbec, but his aroma—like a cheap car air freshener but somehow bergamot?—interfered with the taste of my wine.
“Bruh! I can’t come over now!”
Of course he was also on his phone. As if his cologne weren’t loud enough.
“Make it quick. I’m at Finnegan’s with this girl . . . she says she’s a virgin . . . naw, man. I think she’s telling me the truth, and get this: She’s foreign.”
I cringed, but he laughed.
“Bro. If I can hit this, then I get bingo. Are you not listening? She’s both ‘virgin’ and ‘from another country.’”
Gross.
“Okay, okay. Fine.” He looked over his shoulder again.
“She should be back from the bathroom in five minutes—you know how women are. Give me fifteen to get her back to the apartment and another twenty to get her naked . . . then it’s ten minutes over to your place, let’s see .
. . I should be there before the seventh-inning stretch. ”
Disgusting.
“So help me, if you tell Chelsea about this and she breaks off our engagement, I will kill you with my bare hands.”
And he’s got a fiancée? With those soft hands? And even softer morals?
I was standing before I knew it, taking my drink with me because my mama, whatever her faults, hadn’t semi-raised a fool.
No drink was safe around that guy, but Havisham would keep an eye on my laptop.
Casting a glance over my shoulder, I could see he hadn’t even noticed I was gone.
Probably hadn’t registered my presence at all since I was almost twenty years older than he was and decidedly not a virgin.
I squeezed down the narrow hallway to the bathroom and tried the door.
Locked.
Tapping my foot, I craned my neck to check on Soft Hands just in time to see him end his call. He looked at me. I resisted the urge to glance away—that’s what a guilty person would do. Sure enough, he was looking for his date, so he turned around and motioned for the check.
The handle jiggled, and I wasted no time pushing the woman back into the bathroom before he could turn around and see us.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Did you come in with a blond college boy wearing a camo ball cap?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”
“Well, he sat next to me at the bar, and he was on the phone telling his buddy about how he’s going to win the world’s most disgusting game of bingo by sleeping with a girl who was both a virgin and . . .” How did I say the next part without being just as gross as he was?
“Let me guess,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Not from around here.”
“That was the gist,” I said. “Also, he has a fiancée named Chelsea.”
“What?”
I checked the mirror to make sure her shriek hadn’t shattered the glass.
Her eyes flashed. But then suspicion replaced anger. “Why are you telling me this?”
“While it would’ve been easier to sit there and drink my wine and not do anything, I’ve called a moratorium on watching men take advantage of women. It really chaps my hide.”
She took in my age—advanced—and my attire—baggy T-shirt, holey jeans, Converse—before nodding.
“Fair enough,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t believe I stopped working on my presentation for this.”
“Some guys can pour on the charm when they want to.”
Oh, how I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “you’re really making that outfit work for you.”
She looked down at her miniskirt, knee-high boots, and slouch-necked sweater that fell off one shoulder to reveal a lacy bra strap, then tossed her jet-black hair over her shoulder. “Thanks.”
It was just the sort of outfit a woman agonized over before a first date. Sexy, but not too sexy. Comfortable, but not too comfortable. Dressy, but not too dressy. Perfect for a cooler-than-usual spring date night.
Just the thought of having to go through that whole dating rigamarole again made me want to look for a cave where I could be a hermit. Bonus points if I could also yell indignantly at the sky from time to time.
She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back. “I guess I should go kick him to the curb.”
“You can definitely do better,” I said.
“I know that,” she said with a dazzling smile.
Envy gave a visceral tug in my belly. I’d kill to get my old confidence back, but ever since the night that would live on in infamy, I’d seen only wrinkles and single strands of silver peeking out from my auburn hair.
“Tell the bartender to get you a glass of whatever you like and to put it on Stella’s tab. ”
“Thanks,” she said before we did an avoid-the-toilet dance in the tight space so she could exit.
She left the bathroom, and I took advantage of the facilities. I poured what was left of my wine down the sink and resolved to get a new one. Rationally, I knew the drink couldn’t pick up germs just from being in a cleaner-than-the-average-dive-bar bathroom, but . . . nah. No need to chance it.
The first thing I noticed upon exiting the restroom was an unnatural quiet.
Patrons no longer chattered but instead studied the couple at the bar. Havisham stood tensely coiled, like a lioness about to pounce. Soft Hands should’ve been grateful that looks couldn’t kill. Instead, he appeared to be in double-down mode.
“And why would you believe her? I really thought we had a connection, Daisy, but I can’t trust you if you’re going to question me like this.”
Bold attempt to salvage your plan, Broseph.
My new bathroom buddy’s shoulders slumped.
“Hey, hey.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, then inclined his head to where I stood. “She’s just jealous. Look at her. I’d never go for a woman like that.”
All eyes in the bar found their way to me.
“She’s old enough to be my mother.”
Rude.
But technically accurate, and I would’ve probably been a reasonable twenty as opposed to my own mother’s sixteen.
Mortification threatened to fell me, but if I could discover my partner’s infidelity by touching a stranger’s boob and walk out of my own bedroom with my head held high, then I could handle a prick like Soft Hands.
“Oh, I’m not jealous,” I said as I sauntered back to my stool and then motioned for another Malbec. “I’m sure at least one other person in your vicinity could back me up on the conversation you were having because you, much like your cologne, are loud.”
He stiffened, then turned to face me, his expressions contorting. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“Funny, I was minding my own business, but your disgusting phone call made it very . . . challenging. Then you made me a part of your business when you singled me out just now.”
He blinked twice as if surprised I had the ovarian fortitude to give as good as I got. Finally, he said through his teeth, “Well, it’s not too late to butt out.”
I looked at my watch, then back up at him. “Hmm. I think we’ve used at least ten of your fifty minutes, so you might want to head on over to your buddy’s house for the game.”
He started, his eyes widening at the proof I’d overheard his conversation. My presence hadn’t registered for him earlier. It had been as though I was invisible, and I guess I was to him.
“Speaking of,” I said, before taking a sip of the wine Havisham placed in front of me, “I think your future calculations should probably include more foreplay. Maybe some cuddling afterward. Or do you reserve that behavior just for Chelsea?”
If his face got any redder, he might explode. He looked from my bathroom buddy to me and then got up from the bar muttering, “Saggy-ass bitch.”
He made it all the way to the door before Havisham growled, “Stop. You haven’t paid your bill.”
“I’ll take care of that,” my new friend said sweetly, her voice echoing through the still-stunned bar. “I wouldn’t want to owe him one single thing. Oh, and Tanner?”
He turned, his eyes hopeful.
“I was born at Kennestone. I’m just as American as you are.”
He took a step backward, stumbled, and then turned to rush out of the bar. I faced Daisy as she jabbed a thumb in my direction. “I’ll pay for her drink, too. It’s the least I can do.”
“Well, thanks,” I said as I extended my hand. “I’m Stella Stark.”
“Daisy Salcedo,” my bathroom buddy said as she shook my hand.
“Salcedo, what do you want to drink?” Havisham asked.
“Uh, I’ll have a Strongbow.” She turned to me. “Does she call everyone by their last names?”
“Only the people she likes.”
We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.
I told myself not to let the man-child’s insults get to me, but they were a little too close to some of the things Ken had said.
He’d told me I was getting too old for the honey-trap cases, that no guy would want to cheat with me.
I hadn’t thought much of it at the time because I didn’t like those sorts of cases, the ones where women—or usually some well-meaning family member—wanted to see if a man would hit on another woman or be susceptible to her charms.
Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to flirt, and sometimes I got to wear a tiny button camera, but it always felt pretty sleazy, and no one was ever happy with the results either way.
“You know,” Salcedo said, “you’re pretty good at putting people in their place.”
“Thanks. Too bad I can’t make a career out of it, because I could use the money.”