Home > Yanked (Frenched #1.5)(4)

Yanked (Frenched #1.5)(4)
Author: Melanie Harlow

I raised my eyebrows and picked up my coffee cup, which was still nearly full. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because I know you. And all through that meeting you kept asking Karen White to repeat herself, or you’d say things that had just been said a few minutes before. You stopped taking notes halfway through the meeting and doodled question marks instead, and you called her Sharon when you said goodbye. None of this is like you.” She put her hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling OK?”

“God, I called her Sharon?” I cringed, setting my cup down without drinking from it. “Shit.”

“Yes.” She dropped her hand. “But luckily, I don’t think she cared. Our ideas impressed her enough to verbally commit to hiring us. We just have to send a contract over to her office this afternoon with an estimate and some details. I’ll call over to the DAC and see if her first choice of dates is free. Maybe you can check on a band?”

“Of course,” I promised. Underneath the sea of question marks in my notebook—I much preferred handwritten notes to typed—I jotted a reminder to call the talent agency. I wanted to please this client, I really did. Karen White was special events coordinator for a breast cancer awareness and research foundation. Their annual fundraiser was quite a coup for Devine Events, the event planning business Coco and I ran together. Most of our clients were brides, but I knew this would lead to more high-profile society events if Karen was pleased. She’d contacted us after attending a retro-inspired wedding we’d done last summer, and it had been Coco’s idea to pitch a Roaring Twenties/Great Gatsby theme for the fundraiser. She’d nailed the pitch, and Karen had loved it.

But Coco was right—I was totally distracted, unable to concentrate on the meeting at all. I didn’t want to think about bands and catering, centerpieces and silent auction setup. I wanted to think about living with Lucas. About coffee together every morning and TV on the couch at night. About sharing closet space and bathroom drawers and a bar of soap in the shower.

Mmm, the shower…

“Mia!” Coco was totally exasperated. “What the hell? You’re not listening to a word I’m saying!” Her expression grew concerned, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Oh, God. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“What? No!” That snapped me out of it. “I’m not pregnant, I’m just distracted.” I reached into my purse and pulled out my wallet, removing some cash to pay the tab. “Come on, let’s go back to the office. I’ll tell you all about it.”

We left the money on the table and bundled up our coats against the February chill. It had been a freezing cold, snowy winter, and I was longing for the day when I could wear shoes to work, not boots. We slogged through the slush to the parking lot, and I remembered Lucas’s suggestion that we fly to Miami so I could feel warm sand under my feet. Why the f**k had I said no? Shivering in the teeth-rattling cold, I opened the passenger door and slid into Coco’s bright red Volkswagen Beetle.

“So? Spill.” Coco turned the key in the ignition and the engine came to life.

“I will. Turn on the seat warmers. I like how your car makes my ass hot.”

She grinned and adjusted a knob on the dash. “Done. Your buns will be toasted in a moment.”

“Thank you. OK, so last night, I was on the phone with Lucas,” I began as she backed up, “and—“

“More phone sex?” Her eyebrows disappeared beneath her Bettie Page bangs. “Do tell.” Coco was endlessly fascinated by my sex life, especially since she’d sworn off sex herself. She’d dated a string of ass**les the past few years, and said she was tired of good sex with bad boys.

“If you must know, yes, but that’s not what has me distracted. After we—“ I flapped a hand in the air—“you know, finished that part, he said—“

“Toy or no toy?”

“Jesus, Coco. You really need to get off the abstinence kick.”

“I’m not on an abstinence kick.” She sounded almost offended. “I’m just waiting for someone worthy of all this.” She spanked her hip twice. “Now keep talking. And don’t skip the sexy parts.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. No toy.” Lucas had sent me my first vibrator for my birthday last fall. (Don’t ask how I went twenty-eight years without one.) It was called the Gigi 2, but I preferred to call it the Lucas 10.

He says I flatter him—I say I know what I feel.

“But the important part of this story is not the sex,” I insisted as we drove through Brush Park, the historic neighborhood in Detroit where our office was located. “It’s what he said afterward.”

She glanced at me. “What did he say?”

“He said he wants to make me happy every day.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly, he didn’t explain it. But I wonder if it means he’s ready to make a more serious commitment.” I toyed with the strap of my computer bag. “Like maybe living together.”

“Has he mentioned that before?” I could hear the surprise in her voice.

“No,” I admitted. “But it’s been eight months. Don’t you think he might be ready to at least talk about it?”

Coco shrugged as she pulled into the small parking lot beside the restored Victorian home that housed the Devine Events office. “Maybe. But it could also mean that he wants to make you happy every day with you here and him there.”

   
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