Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [80]
I crooned at him a little, engaging in the kind of baby talk that makes me sick when other people do it. He sat down on my bare foot and licked my sleeve.
“I guess he doesn’t hold it against us,” I said.
“He was asleep in the backseat,” Rivera said. “Twitching like a Taser victim and drooling on his paws.”
“Well …” I rose to my feet, feeling strangely uncomfortable suddenly. I cleared my throat. “Thanks for …” I shrugged. “Everything.”
“Anytime.”
“Really?” My face felt warm. His eyes looked hot.
“I might need a few hours to hydrate,” he said.
“I’m sorry it got so late.”
His eyes said something I couldn’t quite read. “I’ll call you when I get to work,” he said.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, and then he kissed me.
“You’re a hell of a lot better than fine,” he said, and turned away.
I planned to go to bed immediately, but Harley looked hungry, so I fed him a half a bag of dog food, then rummaged in the fridge for something for myself. There were two onions trying to grow their way to freedom, leftovers from ten days ago, three eggs, and a half a carton of soy milk.
It seemed like a sign from God. I mean, my chocolate chip cookie recipe called for three eggs. In five minutes I was adding the chips to the batter and humming.
It was then that I heard a sound at the front door. For a moment my breath caught in my throat, but then Laney spoke. Her footsteps rushed down the hall.
“Mac! Mac!”
“In here.”
She appeared in the doorway of the kitchen like a frantic doe. “What happened?”
I felt the blush rise to my cheeks. “Nothing. Why?”
“Nothing! I’ve been trying to call you since nine o’clock last night.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. I must have put my phone …” I didn’t let my gaze skim to the pile of cushions under which Rivera had hidden it. “… on vibrate. Where’s Solberg?”
“I left him at the inn with his parents. You—” She stopped, scowled. “Are you baking cookies?”
“Yeah. Well, making dough.” My cookies rarely see the inside of an oven. Why waste the electricity when dough is the ambrosia of the gods? I gave the ambrosia a good stir.
“I—”
“Are you making cookies at six in the morning after you’ve been burglarized?”
“Oh.” Maybe it was a little surprising that I had forgotten that little tidbit of information. “I just … I was kind of …”
She gave me a narrow, assessing glance. “When did Rivera leave?”
“What?”
“Rivera.” It was the only word she repeated. The blush had moved down to my clavicle. “What makes you think—”
“You’re humming.”
“Am not.”
“‘Feliz Navidad.’”
“I am not.”
She stared at me a minute longer. “He got naked!” she said.
I stirred the dough again. “Did not,” I said, but she had seated herself by the table. I could feel her staring at me.
“Tell me about it.”
“Listen, Laney, I don’t know what you think happened, but—”
“Was he worth the irritation?”
I opened my mouth to deny everything, but I was dying to tell her. “Holy cow!” I said, and launched into the tale.
28
Sex is all right, but it’s damned hard to compete with a fresh-brewed cup of coffee.
—Grandma Brady, whose
memory might be slipping
a little
I saw two clients the next morning, an unhappy sex addict and a happy asexual guy who was sure he should be miserable.
Rivera called that afternoon. I knew I should have been tired, but it was holiday heaven in my head. I was humming “Welcome Christmas” by the Whoville Whos when Shirley buzzed to say Rivera was on line one.
“How you doing?” he asked, voice all low and rumbly in that way that makes my brain cells go limp.
“Quite well,” I said, and smiled as I settled back in my chair. “How about you?”
“I can’t get you out of my mind.”
“The city of Los Angeles deserves your full attention.”
“Then you shouldn’t sit on the counter wearing nothing but a shoe.”
I laughed. The sound was funny. Like a sex machine running on all cylinders. We bantered a little, then said our good-byes.
By the time I pulled up to my curb that evening, the high had worn off a little. When I