Page 122 of Holding on to Chaos
From: Bruce Oakleigh
Subject: Intensive private therapy
Hello, Eva!
Bruce Oakleigh, president of the Beautification Committee here. I spoke to the Berkowiczs this morning and they informed me that you’ve reached out for help in cementing your relationship with Donovan Cardona.
Rest assured that the Beautification Committee will not abandon you in your time of need. Given your current circumstances (i.e. your mother breaking into your home, the systemic blackmail, and what one can only assume would be a questionable knowledge of healthy relationships), we are tabling all other matching projects for the foreseeable future to help mold you into a healthy, stable significant other.
Please be prepared to meet promptly at 7 p.m. at the police station for your first session. Please bring the following: a box of tissues, an item that brings you comfort, Sheriff Cardona, and a list of your mother’s transgressions as you can best recollect.
Yours in matching success,
Bruce Oakleigh, President
P.S. The aforementioned mission has received the code name Project Lazy Parrot. Please reference Project Lazy Parrot in all correspondence.
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“Ellery had better be planning the most epic thank you in the history of gratitude,” Donovan muttered as he held open the door of the police station for Eva.
“Yeah, about that,” Eva winced, stepping inside. “I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to know that her former friends were planning to ruin her wedding.”
He sighed. “You’re a good friend.”
“I didn’t do it just for her.” She winked. “You’re the one who would have to get up in the middle of ‘does anyone here know any just cause’ to arrest a dozen people in a public spectacle.”
“A good friend and a thoughtful girlfriend,” Donovan amended.
“Just try to keep that in mind during the interrogation,” she reminded him. “Hi, Minnie. Heading out?”
Minnie slung her hand crocheted purse over her shoulder. “Mr. Murkle got it into his thick head that we need a date night tonight.”
Donovan coughed out the word “Uranus,” and Eva elbowed him in his muscled six-pack.
“That sounds like fun,” she said brightly.
“It would be if it were a date with someone else,” Minnie sighed. “How about you? You doing okay since your mama went all breaking and entering on you?”
Donovan snickered behind Eva, and she shot him a dirty look. “I’m just fine. Thanks, Minnie.”
“Well, you all have yourselves a good night while I try not to stab my no-good husband for slurping oysters too loud.”
They waved her off, and Donovan towed Eva into his office.
“Since the Oakleighs aren’t here yet…” he said, pulling Eva into his lap behind the desk.
The unspoken insinuation had her blood simmering. “You’re insatiable,” she accused, feeling him harden beneath her.
“You’re the one wearing a sexy sweater dress thing that you knew would drive me nuts,” he shot back, his big hands cupping her breasts through the soft gray fabric that she’d known would distract him from whatever Bruce had cooked up for them. She looped her arms around his neck.
“I thought we’d already reenacted the sex in the office fantasy,” she said lightly.
His hands skimmed around her waist and down to grip her hips and pull her tight against his arousal.
Eva let her eyelids flutter closed.
“I bet I could make you come like this,” he said, dragging her over the rigid line of his erection.
