Page 57 of Hiss and Make Up
“Mystery-solving.”
He smiled and hugged her goodbye. “Safe mystery-solving, I hope.”
She shook her head and walked to the front door.
“Well, good luck, at least. With your mystery.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He stood on the porch while she walked through the plant maze to her car. “And with Marc!”
* * *
Marc walked out of the bathroom to find Freddy crouched in the doorway, the sliding glass door wide open and the dog licking his face.
“Gross, man. Don’t let that thing in here. It could have fleas.” Marc scratched his arm thinking about his house infested. “Or rabies.”
“Aw, look at this face. Does this look like a rabid face to you?” Freddy cupped the dog’s face in his hand. He scratched the dog on the ear, then slid the door shut. “You’re probably right about the fleas, but I’d sure as hell be suckered in by that face.”
“Yup, we know your track record with cute faces.”
Freddy laughed and grabbed a beer from the fridge. After Marc had asked him to bring a bag of dog food and gave him the cheat-sheet version of the fire and car situation, Freddy had also grabbed Chinese food and a six-pack. Forget about that shoulder to cry on or whatever else the song says. Real friends bring food and booze.That’swhat friends are for.
“Hey man, you’re the one that fell for the cute face this time and ended up with a flea-infested stray.”
“What can I say? It was a really cute face.” Marc took the beer Freddy handed him and popped the cap with his key chain bottle opener. “Sierra, I mean. Not the dog.”
“You still never explained how that happened. I mean, I can’t believe any face was cute enough for you to end up with a dog. Me, yeah. But not you. I thought you hated dogs.”
“I don’t hate dogs,” Marc said. “I hate being responsible for dogs.”
“So then why is that dog here? More importantly,” Freddy added, “why so much time with this woman when I’ve never seen you spend more than two hours with any woman you aren’t related to?”
He’d explained about the fire, the car, the email, the snakes, and working with Sierra. But he’d left out a few important bits. Most notably, the part with the workshop. “Nostalgia?”
“We both know it had to be more than that.” Freddy took a sip of beer and studied Marc’s face. “Plus, you can’t lie for crap.”
“That should be a good thing.”
“It is. Just not for you if you’re gonna try to lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Not really.” He looked down at his phone. “But I’ve gotta call the cute face first.”
She’d texted while he was on the phone with Freddy, so he’d only sent a quick reply. He’d wanted to call her right after he hung up, but his brain wasn’t quite up to speed after getting no sleep and a head full of smoke the night before. So he’d forgotten and had fallen asleep on the couch for a couple hours. When he woke, he knew there was something he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t remember, not even in the shower.
As he pulled up her number, his phone rang again. He stared at the name for a second.
This couldn’t be good.
“Hello?”
“Marc. It’s Adrien. Adrien Guidry.” The voice was tight and edged with angst.
“Hey man, thanks for giving Chloe that info yesterday about tracking that IP address. I appreciate it.”
“You think I’d have helped her if she’d told me it was for you?”
No, of course not. Marc should have known better. It was no secret that Adrien couldn’t stand him. Any time Marc put in a request for tech support, Adrien intentionally kept him at the bottom of the list. It didn’t make much of a difference to Marc. He’d use his personal laptop until Adrien got around to fixing the problem. Adrien knew that, but it was his way of reminding Marc that he couldn’t stand him.
