Page 16 of Cognac Secrets

Everything was so positive and full of love, high fashion, and light.

I felt safe here. Loved. Unconditionally. True, Gerard, and even Rowan, even though she was technically my boss, and I guess even though Gerard was technically my landlord – they were friends who had evolved into family. We looked out for each other, and it was good. Felt nice. Cozy.

I sighed and felt Liza jump up on the bed. She wandered over and started making biscuits in my fuzzy blanket by my hip. Pretty soon, I was getting lulled to sleep by purring on both sides.

Still, I couldn’t help it… my thoughts kept drifting back to Bennie.

True was right. I tended to jump headfirst into things and they never did work out. I was always too much, or not enough.

It hurt, and it sucked. I didn’t know if it was a product of my childhood or what… but I so desperately wanted to love and be loved by someone. Preferably a man, as I was, unfortunately, very straight. Believe me, it might have been easier if I wasn’t but alas, I just seemed to like dick entirely too fucking much.

It was a curse sometimes, given the modern male’s penchant for toxic masculinity and stupid behavior. You just had to look at my dad and brothers for prime examples of that.

I picked up my mom’s necklace and fiddled with it, wondering how she was.

I missed her. I couldn’t quite say I blamed her for sticking around with my dad and brothers. It wasn’t like she had anyplace else to go. I didn’t know. It was a sad and complicated homelife I’d come from. Made sadder and even more complicated by their steadfast belief in their church’s teachings. Shit, that was all positively Old Testament, where women were little better than cattle and it was all fire and brimstone.

I maintained that if you have to fear your god or goddess, then not only were they an asshole, but you were also not displaying faith in them. You were fawning over your abuser. You were in an abusive relationship.

Love shouldn’t come with such conditions.

I sighed, closed my eyes, and tried not to let my mood drop when the thought came unbidden…it’s a love you’ll never hope to find.

Not with how intolerably fucked up I was, anyway.

CHAPTERFIVE

Bennie…

It was midway through my Monday that my burner lit up on my desk next to my regular phone and keyboard. It was an unknown number, but a 504 area code – so, New Orleans. I answered it with a simple forthright, “Hello?”

“Bennie?” Her voice was soft and shy on the other end.

“Yeah? Is this Sandy?” I asked.

“Um, yeah, hi,” she said with a light little laugh that was pure nerves.

“Hi,” I said. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah! I’m fine. I just… well, I have a little bit of a problem here at the shop and I was wondering… you wouldn’t happen to be handy, would you?”

I laughed a little bit and asked, “Handy? Handsy sometimes, maybe, but depends on what the problem is. If it’s not in my wheelhouse, I’m pretty sure I can scare up one of the guys with more expertise than me in whatever subject.”

She was giggling at my dirty flirtation but she didn’t rebuke it or me, simply ignored it and said, “I sold a life-size bronze statue out of the shop yesterday, and Rowan, the shop’s owner, found a place that will ship it to it’s new ownerbut,at the bare minimum, we have to crate it, and at the most, we have to get it to the warehouse or whatever place. We have no idea how to crate something like this. She’s had it for so long, the original crate it came in is long gone. You wouldn’t happen to know how to do something like that, would you?”

“Me? No, but I absolutely know several guys. When do you need it done by?”

She disappeared off the line, the phone becoming muffled, and she asked a question of someone nearby. A woman’s voice responded, low and hoarse, grizzled with age and possibly a lifetime spent smoking or drinking. I couldn’t make out what she said, but she sounded both excited and relieved.

“Um, she says the sooner the better, like maybe tonight? Are you busy?”

“I can be there after work. Let me call around to some of the guys and see if I can’t get some backup with some more expertise – but yeah. At the very least, I can come take a look and figure out what needs to be done.”

“Oh, the Goddess bless you and keep you!” the other voice called from the background.

“Thank you, so much!” Sandy cried and she sounded relieved, too.

“I told you,” I said. “I owe you one.”

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