Riding the Thunder - Deborah MacGillivray [23]
Netta shook her head. “Oh, there’s a real shocker. I think all that Suave hairspray she uses on that helmet of hair sank into her brain long ago. Of course, she wasn’t the brightest Sylvania Blue Dot bulb to start with. You know that, so why are you ticked? You think Sexy Lips will call her?”
“No,” she acknowledged with a disgusted sigh. The disgust was for herself. She admitted it; she was interested in Jago Fitzgerald when her best judgment said fascination with the sexy, arrogant man was hazardous to her mental health. Already she acted like a pathetic idiot because some brainless Barbie doll had slipped him her phone number.
“Just because one pretty man was a big horse’s patoot, doesn’t mean they all are. It’s not Sexy Lips’s fault females get hot and bothered when they’re around him. You know, men do the same over you. You just project that Lady Deep Freeze aura and the poor schmucks scurry off to self-flagellate for daring to look. If you ask my opinion, you’d make a good pair.”
“No one asked you, Netta Know-It-All.” Asha picked up a pencil and made a note to herself to call around in the morning about getting estimates on the cracked ceiling tiles—and how it’s never smart to trust a pretty man. She underlined the last part three times.
“While we’re on the subject of asking, find out if he has a brother like him tucked away somewhere. I’d gladly put up with the inconvenience of fighting off predatory females.”
Asha stuck the paid ticket into the box by the register. “Actually, he does. Just like him. He’s a twin.”
Netta blinked in surprise and then grinned. “You’re kidding. They cloned that gorgeous thing? Oh, there is a god! What’s this carbon copy’s name, and where can I collect him? I get off at ten.”
“Trevelyn, and sorry—he’s in England.”
“There is a god and She hates me. Why is it all the best men are in England, and I’m stuck in a greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere?”
“Don’t you go calling my diner a greasy spoon,” Asha teased, wagging her pencil at her waitress. “Show a little loyalty and respect here.”
Netta put the full glasses on her tray, mooned, “Trevelyn,” and then went back to waiting tables.
The jukebox, which had behaved all evening, suddenly switched mid-song. Asha held her breath, fearing they would be treated to an hour of “Tell Laura I Love Her.” When Ray Davis of The Kinks cut loose with “You Really Got Me,” she exhaled in relief.
“Still 1964,” she chuckled, “but at least it’s a break from the‘Tell Laura’marathon, for which my nerves are thankful.”
With a big grin, Netta gave her a thumbs-up sign. “See—told you there is a god. If I ever land on Jeopardy, I hope one of the categories is music from the 1960s. Man, will I be able to ace that. Yeah, give me The Hollies for $500, Alex.”
As Asha began to sing along with Ray, her eyes shifted casually to Jago. “‘Yeah, you really got me, so I can’t sleep at night . . .’”
The front door pushed open and a handsome man with auburn hair came through, pulling Asha from her mental meanderings. Until she’d met Jago Fitzgerald, she’d never known a more gorgeous man than her brother. One might actually call him beautiful. Netta’s motor would likely strip gears with Liam and Jago in the same room. It was hard on a woman’s libido to see two men so utterly drop-dead gorgeous in the same vicinity.
Asha’s fingernails tapped a restless tattoo on the countertop. “I could make a fortune renting them out as models for Romance book covers, then I could pay for my cracked ceiling tiles,” she muttered.
“What’s this about prostituting me for the sake of a ceiling? I’m insulted. I would think my bod could cover the cost of your new air conditioner, too.” Liam leaned across the counter and kissed her on the cheek.
Asha’s eyes slid past him to Jago, sitting in the booth halfway across the diner, noting the disconcerted look upon his face. She smiled unrepentantly. After being perturbed at breakfast, it felt good