by Anne Harper
Then the rest of the day went on like Donavon Robertson hadn’t just peed in their Cheerios. Quinn said his goodbyes while on the phone with someone and left, Tally and Jones went next. Nell looked around the office with a heart full of nostalgia and then went, too.
Saturday turned that nostalgia into slight panic, sprinkled on a dose of anger, and then threw in a whole heap of frustration.
Men.
She wasn’t a fan of any of them at the moment, whether they deserved it or not.
Ron and his libido for putting her in an awkward situation, Greg for pulling the relationship rug out from under them, which led to a viral rant, Quinn for confusing her newly formed anti-men stance with his good-guy charm and attraction, Keith for being a sleazeball, and Donavon for taking years of hard work and putting it all on one client.
A client who, if they won, was only a stepping stone to the next big question.
Who would Donavon offer Heart in Hand to?
Her or her boss?
Nell sighed to herself in the mirror.
The same boss she still couldn’t manage to get out of her head.
Why couldn’t the world just be women?
“All right. You need to get out of your own head,” Nell told herself out loud. She grabbed her phone and decided it was time to finally call someone she’d been avoiding.
Liere’s phone rang once before the oldest Bennett sibling, aka Mama Hen, answered.
“Antonella? Is everything okay?”
Nell kept her eye roll at bay. Like their mother, Liere could see you even when she wasn’t in front of you. Or even in the same building.
“Yeah, everything is fine. I just wanted to see if you were busy today. I was thinking maybe we could hang out?”
Liere, thirty, an accountant, and a ball-buster who didn’t mince her words, was quick.
“Finally feeling guilty, since I’m the only sibling you haven’t talked to since you became an internet sensation?”
“Liere, it was nothing personal. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. The only reason the rest got through is because they don’t respect boundaries. Mateo nearly banged down my door before taking my boss out, and Olly wouldn’t stop calling and texting, and I figured getting a new number would be too much of a hassle.”
There was a snigger on the other end of the line. Joking about getting a new number to help curb Olly’s aggressive texting and calling was a joke among all Bennetts, their parents included.
“All right, well, how about we go to the city? I was thinking about checking out some party decorations for Mom’s shindig next month. That way we’re not scrambling last second.”
“Perfect!”
“Olly was going to come over to, I assume, gossip about Bennett Bra-gate for lunch, so I’ll just loop her into this. Okay?”
“Yeah. It’s probably better if I get you both on the same page and answer any burning questions you might have left.”
All Bennetts liked gossip, whether or not they admitted it, but Liere was the coolest cucumber of the bunch when it came to knowing when to dive right in and when to wait it out.
“I only have one burning question, and it’s about how much the bra must have cost. That thing had more frills than Mateo’s cowboy costume jacket when he was in elementary school. How much did you dish out for it?”
“Ha. Sorry, sis. Some mysteries are better left unsolved.”
The city of Mobile was a decent drive out of town, but it was perfect for a sisterly interrogation. Olly did most of the questioning, Nell did all of the answering, and Liere drove while adding in a few comments of her own.
There was a theme to how they felt about everything that had happened before and after the viral video and, somehow, it was Everyone Is Against Greg Lapinski. Which surprised Nell, since she thought it should have been more Everyone Is For Quinn Hannigan. She hadn’t told her sisters about him at the restaurant after her rant—again, she was all for saving some details for herself—but he’d been front and center in her story after that.
“The man was always so weird around us,” Olly said of Greg as they were cruising through the shopping center’s parking lot. “Remember last Christmas when he said he didn’t want to make the drive ‘just to sit around and watch Die Hard’ with us?”
“To be fair, we watch it at every single one of our houses during December. That’s six times watching the same movie.”
Olly threw her hands up from the back seat.
“Exactly! It’s tradition! If you can’t respect tradition, you can’t respect the people who do the tradition. Back me up here, Liere.”
“Well, as a family we have a lot of traditions, so I get not wanting to do all of them, but I’ve been Team No Greg since I met him.”
“And why is that exactly?” Nell knew she should have been miffed, but she would rather hear the truth than be lied to in an attempt to save her feelings.
Liere pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine. She turned, short hair bobbing at the movement, and Nell got trapped in her severe hazel-eyed stare.
“He didn’t look at you when you were across the room.”
Nell felt her eyebrow go high. “Come again?”
“When you’re all in with someone and that someone is standing on the other side of the room without you, you look at them.”
“You look at them,” Nell repeated. She shared a glance with Olly, whose eyebrow was also raised in question.
Liere nodded.
“You can’t help it. You just look at them. Maybe without even realizing it. It’s just what you do.”
“And…Greg never looked at me.”
Liere shook her head. “He looked at his phone a lot. His surroundings. That six-foot cardboard cutout of Cheech that Mateo weirdly displays in his living room. But I never caught him looking at you.”
Nell might have thought that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard but, weirdly, it still stung.
Does Quinn look at me?
It was such a fast thought, Nell felt a blush trying to rise up her neck.
They were talking about Greg, not Quinn.
Yet, in the moment, she couldn’t help but compare the two.
Greg had always been so calm around her. He would have never gone after Keith and he would never have stayed at the restaurant after she’d made a scene like on Valentine’s Day. He also wouldn’t take half a day off work to watch her baby brother get drunk to celebrate and he definitely had never given her a card and chocolates when she was feeling bad.
Nell knew Liere was right.
Greg probably didn’t ever look at her when she was across the room.
But did Quinn?
Liere’s expression softened.
“I’m not saying Greg didn’t care, and I’m not saying that that had anything to do with you.” The immediate Bennett family might not be fluent in Spanish, but their Mexican heritage shone through in how hands-on affectionate they were with one another. She reached over and placed a hand on Nell’s cheek, a comforting move they’d learned from their mother. “You said during your rant that you weren’t his ‘the one’ but, Nell, I’m here to tell you I think, and have thought for years, that it was the other way around. He wasn’t yours.”
She smiled, small but reassuring, until Nell joined in.
Then Olly leaned in between their seats.
“Damn, Liere. Way to make a girl get misty-eyed outside of a Target.”
That got them all laughing, and soon they were in shopping mode. Just three women enjoying a men-free Saturday. Sisters armed with debit cards, tackling the injustice of marked-up jeans, too-expensive streamers, and the oh-hell-no price of manicures.
“I do my own nails to save money. Thanks,” Liere said, halting Olly before she could drag them all into Nails For Days.
Olly whined at
the negativity.
“Y’all, I haven’t treated myself in weeks. I want to keep this self-care vibe going!”
“We can do that without spending”—Liere peered at the plastic sign against the front window—“thirty dollars for a mani-pedi supreme.”
“What if I paid for everyone?”
Liere snorted. “We’re not letting you drop that kind of cash. We can just self-care some other way. What about drinks at my place? I still have some Cupcake wine from our Bachelorette finale watch.”
Olly did a little stomp. “We do that on normal weeknights. I want to feel fancy.”
“Why don’t we go back to Arbor Bay, get Carla Jean to do our hair, and then eat at the Silver Slipper?” Nell spoke up, realizing she could kill two birds with this stone and start her plan to infiltrate Mrs. McMurray. “Carla Jean doesn’t charge an arm and a leg, and after we’re done with her, we can get fancy and have a good meal.” She turned to Liere. “You know you love their pasta, even if you hate their name.”
“It makes me feel like they’re forcing me into a fairy tale.”
“I feel like I’m compelled to point out that most people would love that,” Olly said, excitement clearly ringing through her words.
“Come on.” Nell reached out and took her sisters’ hands in hers. Their respective shopping bags shifted on their arms at the movement. “After everything that’s happened to me in the last two weeks, don’t you feel sorry enough for me to just go along with this?”
Liere, bless her, sighed long and true.
“Fine, but we also need to dress the part. I’m not about to get my hair done and then go out wearing my T-shirt and jeans. Same for you two.”
Olly saluted. “Yes ma’am.”
Nell nodded. “Those terms sound acceptable to me.”
Liere rolled her eyes. “Then it looks like the Bennett women are doing a night out on the town.”
Nell’s pleasure turned into a feeling of mischief. She grinned at her sisters.
“Arbor Bay won’t know what hit them.”
…
There he was thinking about work and Dweller’s Cove and how frustrated he was at Donavon for making his future a big dice roll, and then he was thinking of the possibility of winning Mrs. McMurray. Then having to potentially decide to buy Heart in Hand and become the new owner himself. Then he thought about Nell getting the opportunity instead.
Donavon had made them winning a big client for Heart in Hand into someone losing a chance that, he suspected, they now both wanted. He couldn’t blame Nell for it; she had been there since the beginning and had worked hard every step of the way. Yet so had he, even if it wasn’t all at Heart in Hand.
The way Quinn saw it, no outcome was a true win. They ran the risk of being let go under new ownership or losing something Nell and he both wanted to each other. And that was bothering him.
That whole line of thinking started to get under his skin, so Quinn turned up the heat in the shower and forced himself to switch gears to the more technical side of running the business. He thought about a few ongoing repairs being made to two of their rental properties and how he needed to check up on those sometime in the next week. He thought about lunch and coffee and when he needed to start looking for a vehicle to buy rather than rent.
Then, bam, just like that he was picturing Nell Bennett’s breasts and the bra that had put everyone in an uproar, which was sure turning out to be the gift that kept on giving, apparently.
Now, Quinn could have stopped there. Or jumped the track to someone who wasn’t his twenty-four-year-old employee, but once he was thinking about her breasts, he was thinking about them against him. In his hand. Beneath his tongue.
And, well, shit, he couldn’t just stop there.
Once he moved from her breasts, he trailed back up to her lips and stayed there for a while. Then? Well, he dropped down and imagined what he thought would make those dark, whiskey-colored eyes of hers close in pleasure. Then he pictured what they could do together to keep that happening for both of them.
After that, he was done.
D. O. N. E.
There was only one conclusion to come to, and boy did he come to it.
It was only after he was out of the shower and dressed later on that night that he decided to let the guilt of it all back in.
He didn’t really know Nell and yet she’d been starring in his thoughts daily—and now the damn shower.
“You like me, Mr. Hannigan. You wanna be my frieeeeend.”
He definitely couldn’t just be her friend after what he’d done.
Though, what she’d said was true.
Quinn liked being around her.
An inconvenient truth, but that was that.
He still couldn’t help but search her out in a room and make sure he saw her before he left it. Even when he was on the phone with Owen the day before, he’d slowed just to catch a glimpse and wave.
Truly inconvenient.
He let out a long sigh and pulled a beer from the fridge.
“You’re killing it at the loner game, bud,” he said aloud to his tiny house. “Next thing you know, you’ll throw a party, invite the entire town over, and then wonder why the hell they’re all here.”
Quinn’s phone started to ring before he could deep-dive into chiding himself out loud.
The caller ID popped up with a number he didn’t have saved or recognize. The voice, however, that came through when he answered was all Donavon Robertson. The one who had created the other half of his current problems and definitely couldn’t know about his struggle with unprofessional feelings about his coworker.
Though, wouldn’t you know it, what he had to say led Quinn right back to the land of Nell anyway.
Chapter Nine
Curls? At 100 percent beautiful chaos.
Makeup? Girl was more done up than she’d been at prom but with a better understanding of contouring and cat eyeliner.
Outfit? A deep crimson number that clung to her curves, dipped low to show that there was no bra, expensive or not, beneath its tight fabric, and stopped just below her knees, giving enough space to appreciate that she’d shaved her legs and that her ankle boots were making her muscles pop.
Entourage? Two Mexican-American beauties who were done up in similar yet breathtaking fashions.
Nell walked into the Silver Slipper with her sisters and an outrageous sense of confidence. Every step was decisive. Every step was power. Every step had purpose.
That purpose? Drink wine and talk shit.
Eat your hearts out, Arbor Bay.
“I reserved us a table,” Liere said as they came up to the host station. She was two inches taller than normal thanks to her barely worn high heels. “Since, you know, there’s not much to do in Arbor Bay on a Saturday night other than go to the bar and drink or go to a restaurant and eat and drink.”
“Or both,” Nell pointed out.
“Which was what we’re going to do tonight,” Olly added. “Food and wine, then more wine.”
Nell laughed. “Calm down there, you lush.”
“Don’t act like you thought this night was going to go anywhere different.” Olly gave her a small hip bump. “It’s not every day we show the town how damn sexy we can be.”
Nell rolled her eyes, but there was that confidence again. Taking pride in what her sister said.
Still, there was a small hesitation that came with it this time.
“As long as we don’t post any of this online. I don’t need another round of strangers judging me so close to the last round.”
It’s not like Quinn can punch everyone who’s mean to me.
Olly lowered her voice. “Then you might want to drop your phone into your purse and forget it’s there. You know how outspoken you get when you’ve doubled down on wine.”
“I t
hink that’s just how alcohol works for most people.” Nell leveled her gaze at the woman. “I seem to recall the last time you drank too much wine, you broke up with a man and then immediately tried to booty call his friend.”
Olly didn’t fight that point. Instead she lowered her voice and nodded toward Liere waiting at the host station. She was texting someone a long message.
“Maybe we all should just drop our phones into the abyss of our purses and pretend we don’t have them for the night.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
The host showed up and led their party through the main room to a table opposite the bar. The Silver Slipper was filled with men and women who’d apparently also felt the urge to leave their casual clothes behind. Olly was making noises after a few men in suits passed.
“I know you said you’re done with men, but if I ask for you to be my wingwoman, is that a loophole?” she asked.
Nell snorted. “If they’ve seen my ‘done with all men’ video, then I doubt they’ll give me and anyone I’m wing-womaning a second glance.”
Olly took her seat with an indignant look. “Have you seen us? We’re worth way more than a second, third, or even fifth glance. I mean, you can’t even see my Spanx through this thing. I’m slaying it.”
The three of them shared a laugh and made nice with the waitress who bustled up. Her name was Nancy and Stress was her middle name. She brought out the drink menu with apologies in tow.
“I hate to do this, ladies, but we’re a bit understaffed at the moment. It might be faster to order from the bar if you want a drink when you’re ready.”
They assured her that wasn’t an outrageous request after she dished out another round of apologies. Instead they looked at their menus.
Then Liere went to slightly snooping.
“So are you really ‘done with all men’?” she asked, eyes trained down. Her phone had been fascinating since they’d stepped foot in the parking lot. As far as Nell knew, Liere was single, but maybe she’d missed some romantic developments in the last two weeks.
