Page 46 of Road Queens
“Yes. As I said. I will let him know.” When neither of them responded, she sighed. “Whaaaaat?” That didn’t sound defensive, right?
“We’ve agreed we’re done, we agreed we don’t have to do anything else, but you still want another face to face with Beane to ... tell him we’re done?”
“Well, Sid, he might have more intel.”
“‘Intel’? Stop talking like you’re in a movie. And we just agreed we don’t need to take this further. Don’t call me Sid, and don’t let your dry spell steer the car,” Sidney warned.
Amanda blinked. “What?”
“Dry spell?” Cass was staring at her with utter astonishment. “You?”
“Yes,me,” Amanda snapped. “I’m a smidge busy these days, what with running my own business and doing all the repair work this ancient building requires and visiting incarcerated moms and looking up old friends who have been accused of murder.”
“Didn’t we already work this out in high school?” Sidney asked. “You’re bi, which means your dating pool is double.”
“That would be a good point except it’s about my schedule, not my preferences. Not that it’s any concern of yours, but I have a date next week with a discerning lady I met via snatch.com.”
Sidney burst out laughing. “You’re making that up.”
Amanda shrugged. “Well, okay, I am. But don’t you think snatch.com should be a thing?” David Rose fromSchitt’s Creekwas her lodestar; like him, she loved the wine, not the label.
“I still don’t get it,” Cass confessed. “You could be with anyone. In the world. You’ve always had a girlfriend or boyfriend.”
Amanda could feel her cheeks getting warm. Cass was one of those people who thought her (former?) friends were more fuckable than they really were. It was flattering, if inaccurate, to be seen like that.
“Amanda, how are you gonna corner this guy—”
“‘Corner’? You make it sound like I have to set a trap.”
“—and serve him an aggressive helping of ‘We’re out, buh-bye’?”
“Easy-peasy.” Amanda held up her ace. “The gorgeous dummy forgot his driver’s license.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
His phone was chiming, and Sean Beane didn’t give a ripe shit. Then he remembered what day it was and fumbled in the general direction of the nightstand. The water bottle fell (he always capped them after he’d taken a swig for this exact reason), followed by the keys, followed by his phone, which was now buzzing on the hardwood floor like an irked hornet.
He peeked over the edge of his bed. No phone in sight; it had vibrated itself under the bed. Of course. His bed was absurdly high, the bedding ridiculously fluffy, so when anything hit the floor, it was always just out of reach.
He wriggled farther over the edge, following the vibrations. His detective work bore three pieces of fruit: (1) his phone was back at hand, (2) as was his water bottle, and (3) he needed to dust under the bed.
“Hey, sis,” he croaked.
“Yikes, drink some water right now,” Dinah ordered.
“Nnnfff,” he replied, then took a few swigs. “Be glad we’re not on FaceTime.”
“Listen, we both agreed this was an excellent alternative to your Thursday pop-ins.”
Sean didn’t say anything. He’d talked to Dinah plenty of times in her old life, and she’d never once let on that her shitpoke “partner” was smacking her around. He found out later that on more than one occasion, they’d spoken on the phone while she was sporting a splint.
But she had a point; the pop-ins were stressful and expensive. He tended to spend the visit prowling around bedrooms, poking through medicine cabinets (“Whoa! Who needed the ACE bandage?Who got hurt and had to wrap something?”), giving his (current) bro-in-law severe side-eye, and politely interrogating his niece (“Has Mommy been to a doctor since my visit two weeks ago? Or an emergency room? You can tell me. Uncle Sean promises not to beat your stepfather to death.”).
“And you’ve gotta get a new bed, Sean,” Dinah continued. “You’ve been sleeping on that pile of polyurethane for a decade.”
“I like it,” he lied. “Got it broken in and everything. Because I’ve got the sheets.”
The sheets! Egyptian cotton, Mayfair Linen, 800 thread count. He had them in four colors: teal, burgundy, taupe, seafoam. Bedding and high-end ingredients, like real vanilla, were his only splurges.
