Page 48 of Heart Me Up
I went on. “I’m having him over for dinner, butAmy—” I sent her a glare. “Amy says I need some sort of big romantic gesture.”
Mike’s mouth was full, but he nodded frantically.
Carlos asked, “What, like flowers or something?”
I pointed at him. “See, that’s what I thought.”
Mike, having swallowed, said, “No way. The big gesture, um.” He slid his eyes to Amy and back to me. “It replaces the memory of him being angry at you with a mushy romantic feeling. So, yeah, it needs to be over the top. More than just flowers.”
Oh. That made sense.
“Foster,” Silvia began. “What about taking him to where you first met? My late husband, God rest his soul, would always take me to the restaurant where we had our first date when he wanted to get me in a good mood.” Then she patted my arm and fucking waggled her eyebrows at everyone.
“Whoa! You go, Silvia,” Carlos hooted, and the rest of us laughed.
“Hmm. I guess I could ask him to meet me at Henry’s,” I mused.
“Too bad you don’t have that dog collar anymore,” Artie pointed out. “Since you’re learning about all of that kinky stuff these days, you could use it to show him you’re his—” He glanced at Silvia. “Um, that you belong to him.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but I paused. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Amy nodded. “You could wear it under your shirt and do the big reveal at the right moment.”
Everyone was quiet while I pondered. “I think he’d like it.” Decision made.
Mike said, “We’ll need photos.”
* * *
An hour or so later, as Amy was explaining to a nonplussed and slightly horrified Artie why theTEABAGcard was in fact a match for the code wordVAGINA, I nudged Silvia and asked her, “Have you talked to Corrie since she moved out?”
Silvia let out a deep sigh. “She wants to move back in. She does not like her mother’s new friends and she says she made a mistake.”
I put my hand on Silvia’s shoulder. “What are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “I don’t want Corrie to be around those people, but I can’t just let her come back. She knew she couldn’t see her mother if she wanted to live with me, but she did it anyway. And she hurt the people at the pet resort when she pretended she was dead.” Silvia shook her head. “I still can’t believe my sweet granddaughter would do such a thing.” She took a long swallow of her beer. “I don’t know if I can trust her again.”
“You’d have to put some conditions on it. Clean up after herself, stuff like that,” I suggested.
Silvia tilted her head while picking at the label on her beer bottle. “Maybe.”
Amy, Artie and Mike finished their turn, so Silvia and I looked at Carlos.
He told us, “There are three cards, and the code word isRISKY.”
Chapter22
Craig
The pet resortwas running smoothly on Wednesday. Greg and I used the quiet time to go through job applications so we could replace a couple of the summer hires who’d gone back to school.
Foster and I had exchanged good morning texts earlier, and we’d agreed I’d go to his house for dinner around 7:30pm. I was having a great day.
A little after lunch, my phone chimed.
Foster: Hey, can I give Silvia your phone number? Corrie wants to move back in with her and one of Silvia’s conditions is that Corrie apologizes to you and everyone at the pet resort.
My eyebrows climbed my forehead. Wow. I could see why Silvia would want that, but I wasn’t sure bringing Corrie to the pet resort was the best idea.
