Page 72 of Tenderfoot

This was part of those threads I’d been trying to grab onto this morning.

“Dude’s gonna hesitate,” Shanti went on. “Don’t blame him. Especially if the woman he likes is brushing him off.” She focused on me as my heart squeezed. “That’s not a commentary on where you were at. I’m sure you had your reasons. I’m just sayin’, I see where he was at. I also see, he shows at a classy restaurant where you’re looking cute on a date, even a fake date, it’s gonna tweak him because he’s seeing in real time the life you lived that he didn’t. Then he sits down with you at said restaurant, you get huffy and walk away from him, well, that’s gonna tweak him too. Why he lashed out?” She shrugged. “No idea. Also not okay. But I see the triggers.”

I did too.

I so did.

“So you guys are, you know…exploring this now?” Willow asked.

I lifted a shoulder to try to be nonchalant about how excited I was about it.

I failed at being nonchalant and ended up grinning, and maybe I bounced on my toes (twice).

This got me reciprocating grins all around.

Though, I didn’t want to get too excited. It was really new, and Javi and I still had a heavy talk on the schedule.

In order not to let my excitement get out of hand, I changed the subject.

“So, okay, what did I miss while all that was happening?” I asked.

“Not much,” Raye answered. She then went forth to fill me in on stuff I already knew. “Except Cap’s lost hold on his inner caveman, and Eric’s exposed he has one too. We have bodyguards. And they think they’re taking over this case.”

“Can I, at this juncture, ask why we wouldn’t let trained private detectives with years of experience take over a case that got suddenly scary really damned quick?” Willow queried an excellent query.

“We’re not in this for fun,” Raye replied.

“I thought we were,” Shanti said under her breath to Jessie.

But it was Raye who replied. “Right. We’re in it for that too. But mostly, we’re in it for justice.”

I was all for justice.

But the only thing I wanted broken in this mess was my mushroom.

“Okay, so Javi and I are…”—I paused to count—“fourteen hours into us exploring an us, but I already know he’s overprotective.”

“Shocker,” Shanti quipped, a twinkle in her brown eyes.

“And my apartment is a mess,” I kept going.

“Willow, Raye and I are gonna get on that,” Luna told me. “After work. The boys got what they needed out of it, so they said we’re good to do a cleanup.”

I was interested to learn what the boys got out of it, but first things first.

“Aw, that’s sweet. But you don’t have to.”

“When the meeting tonight descends into a party, we’re probably looking at a late night, so when are you gonna do it?” Luna asked me.

“No rush. She’s got at least a weeks’ worth of stuff at Javi’s,” Jessie shared.

Everyone looked at me again.

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t pack it,” I said. “And I’ll be talking to Javi later about it, because I know he wants me to stay with him so he can keep me safe, but I’m not moving in with him while he does.”

“Why not?” Shanti asked.

Why not?

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