Page 41 of Play Our Song

But Sophie couldn’t answer. She was too busy crying.

“Here you go,” Cass said, shoving a box of tissues in front of Sophie and clinking four beakers onto the table.

“I got this,” said Amelia, and there was the sound of a cork popping and then wine glugging into glasses.

“Now,” Jules said. “Stop this crying and tell us what happened.”

“I kissed her,” wailed Sophie.

“She what?” Cass asked.

“She kissed her,” said Amelia.

“Who?” asked Cass.

“The policewoman,” Amelia said.

“Police officer,” sobbed Sophie.

“Then why’s she crying?” Cass asked. “I think we’re going to need more than one bottle of wine for this.”

“There’s a whole box left in the back from when we catered that wedding,” Amelia said. “So there’s plenty.”

“Here, drink,” said Jules, pushing the beaker of sticky red wine in front of Sophie.

Sophie took a sip, then a mouthful. Drinking stopped her crying. She couldn’t do both at once. She chugged half the glass, then pulled a tissue out of the box, blew her nose, scrubbed at her eyes, and finally took a breath. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Jules said gently. “Now, why don’t you tell us what happened?”

Sophie nodded. “We kissed. It was… amazing.”

“So amazing that it made you cry,” Cass guessed.

“I don’t think you’re helping,” said Amelia.

“I swear, if the two of you don’t shut up, I’m going to throw you out,” said Jules.

“It’s our cafe,” said Amelia.

“I don’t care,” Jules said. She turned back to Sophie. “Let me guess. You kissed first and then you told her who you were?”

Sophie nodded again, more miserably this time. “She, um, didn’t take it well.”

“Probably because of Gio,” said Cass darkly. “He’s an eejit. Your dad’s always saying so.”

“It’s not,” said Sophie. “Well, maybe it is a bit. It’s because she’s got a case, an investigation. I think it’s like her big break or whatever. She’s looking into all these cars around here getting stolen.”

“Yeah, Dougie McKeefe got his nicked the other day,” said Amelia. “Dunno why, it was a piece of crap.”

“Probably for parts,” Sophie said.

The others looked at her.

“What? I’m not supposed to know what goes on in garages? There are places called chop shops. The stolen cars get drivenin, the mechanics there strip them for parts or rebuild them, depending on how good the chassis is. Then they get sold on.”

“Oh,” Cass said, turning to look at Amelia.

“No,” said Amelia. “We’re not a garage, we’re not car thieves, and we don’t know the first thing about cars. We’re not opening a chop shop.”

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