Page 43 of Lady Sings the Blues

13.

Elise

I turn down my street with a plastic bag in each hand seeing as I had to walk to the grocery store since I still haven’t figured out the car situation yet.

Chili sounded good for dinner tonight. There are warm weather foods and there are cold weather foods. Chili though, chili can and should be enjoyed year round. And even if I’m the only one to enjoy it, I make a delicious chili. Hands down. Garnishes of Fritos, shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream and chopped avocado. My chili could break a mama’s heart, it’s so good.

But as I reach the neighbor’s lawn all thoughts of chili vanish what with watching the moving van in front of my brownstone and the men loading it up with furniture. Furniture they’ve hauled by trampling over my newly planted summer flowers. I spent hours painstakingly plotting colors and positions to give the most aesthetic view from the street. And now the flowerbed is ruined. All that hard work down the drain.

Then every time one of the men knocks something heavy, a credenza or dining table, against the antique brick siding, my heart breaks a little more.

Vinnie is actually moving?Vinnie, my landlord who owns the building now.

It doesn’t click with me, seeing all that’s going on around me that the sofa being loaded into the van looks like my sofa.

“Vinnie?” I call out. “You’re moving?”

“No darlin’, you’re movin’ home.”

Beau.

“Oh, come on!” I say, just now noticing the cuts where mover logos should be. “You let them in my house?”

Vinnie looks at me, completely unremorseful. “When bikers show up on my lawn insisting I let them in or face bodily harm, I do it sweetheart.”

“Beau, this is insanity. You can’t break into my home.”

“This ain’t your home, darlin’. I’ve decided your home’s in Thornbriar,with me.” He emphasizes by poking his thumb to his chest. “So now I’m moving you home.”

No one is listening to me. They just keep loading my life into the back of a U-Haul.

“How’d you even find me?”

“How you think he got the name Bloodhound?” he asks smugly, pointing to one of the men moving my dresser.

I swallow, trying to calm myself when Chaos walks out of the apartment carrying a small box in one hand. In the other he flicks on—“Do you have my vibrator?”

“Kinky little thing, aren’t you? No wonder Boss wants you so badly.”

He holds that particular vibrator against his cheek. “I wouldn’t put your face against that one,” I warn him.

“Yeah, why not?”

“Because it doesn’t go in the hole you think it does.”

A couple strangled laughs come from the guys who get it right away.

Chaos cocks his head and stares blankly at me, a look to say hedoesn’tfollow. And then I see it, when my words click. A big smile spreads across his gorgeous face and he calls out. “Boss, I think I’m in love with your old lady.” That same wry smile lets everyone else know, too.

“Watch yourself,” Beau grumbles at the same time I protest.

“I’m not his old lady.”

“Here we go again.” Chaos sighs, shaking his head.

“I’m not kidding. I’ve been avoiding you, Beau. When will you get it through that thick head of yours? I’m not your old lady. I’m not moving. I don’t like you anymore.”

“Maybe not, but you love me.”

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