There was still a lingering awkwardness from our conversation about Les and I wasn’t sure why. Thankfully, Joe changed the subject.
“So,” he said sheepishly. “What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?”
I laughed. “Honestly, I didn’t really date much back home.”
He looked surprised. “Really? I figured you’ve been on lots of dates with six hus…” He stopped mid-word and looked up at me. I was sure his face mirrored my own—sheer terror.
So he knew. Everybody must have known. And I was guessing that meant he knew about Bo too.
I put my fork down, wondering if I should bolt, and if I did, how bad would it be if I ran out with my plate.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly leaning over the table and trying to grab my hand. I pulled it away and put my hands on my lap. I couldn’t even look at him.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
“Who told you?”
He stammered. “I don’t even remember. It really didn’t seem like a big deal. I didn’t know it was a secret.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then why did you stop mid-sentence? Why did you stop if you didn’t think it was a big deal?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Suddenly something dawned on me. “Oh. My. Gosh. That’s why you asked me on this date, isn’t it? You saw me with Les and were worried that if you didn’t act fast, I’d marry him and you wouldn’t get your chance with me.”
He looked like a deer caught in headlights.
I shook my head and started to get up. He gently grabbed my arm. “Please,” he begged. “That’s not it. Don’t leave.”
I sat back down, not wanting to make a scene.
“Then what is it?”
He stammered. “It’s…it’s… Okay, if I’m being honest, that’s what it was! Okay! I’m not going to lie. I heard you act fast and I wanted to throw my name in the hat. Is that so bad? I like you, Nikki. I didn’t want to lose out on a chance to get to know you better.”
I didn’t know what to say. How could I blame him? Maybe I should have even been flattered in some weird way. But I wasn’t. I was embarrassed and angry. And not so much with Joe, but with myself.
“I don’t marry people that fast anymore,” I finally said. “It’s something about me that I’m trying to change… I am changing.” I couldn’t even look at him.
“I don’t care about your past,” he said, reaching across the table toward me. “I just care about now. Tonight. You and your beautiful hair, and this amazing food, and our waiter that looks like he belongs on a Disney show.”
As much as I tried not to, I laughed.
“I’ve made mistakes too. I have things in my past that I’m not proud of.” He sighed and pulled back his hand since I didn’t take it. “I was engaged to a girl for four years. Four years! She left me last year and do you know where she is now?”
I shook my head no.
“Ohio. She’s married and has a baby on the way. And the part that hurts the most? She married a fireman. And he’s Italian! She practically married me. Only it isn’t me. And do you know why it isn’t me? Because I kept putting off our wedding. I was afraid to actually commit and now she’s gone.”
My anger and embarrassment faded away as I sat there looking at Joe while he tried to keep himself from falling apart.
He looked up at me with glossy eyes. “I lost her, Nikki. And I know it sounds stupid, but I didn’t want to lose my chance with you too.”
“So, you would marry me?” I laughed, breaking the sadness that had come over our table.
He smiled. “Are you proposing to me?”.
“No! I don’t want anything like that for a long time. I just want to take things slow, you know?”
He nodded with a smile. “I don’t want to get married that fast either.”
I smiled at him and winked. “But four years is a freaking long time, so don’t expect to do that again.”
That made Joe laugh and just like that, we were back to enjoying our date.
When dessert arrived, I felt like I could finally answer his question that started the whole marriage talk.
“Okay,” I said over my tiramisu. “I’ll tell you the worst date I’ve ever been on as long as you promise to tell me yours.”
Joe agreed. “I knew you had to have a good one!”
“You can’t hold it against me!” I told him. “A couple summers ago, I went on a date to the fair with this guy, Rodney. He wanted to go to the tractor pull…”
“Oh my gosh!” Joe laughed. “That is the worst date ever.”
“I haven’t even told you the bad part yet!”
“Sorry.” He smiled. “Go on.”
“So we got our tickets and we’re sitting there with our lemonades and all of a sudden, he starts freaking out and pushing me, whispering loudly, ‘We have to go! We have to go!’ I was like, what is going on? Just tell me already! He pointed to a woman in the row in front of us and down about ten feet. He told me she was his wife and she had a restraining order against him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Joe said, before laughing. “That’s terrible! Please tell me that’s not one of the guys you married.”
“No,” I said, digging in to my dessert, happy to have those days behind me. “They ended up working things out. But I did marry his cousin.” I looked up to see if there was any judgement in his eyes, but Joe just laughed harder.
“Okay,” I said, leaning over the table a little. “I told you mine, now you tell me yours.”
He sighed. “After Julia left me and moved to Ohio, one of my buddies set me up with a friend of his. I picked her up and she was in a bad mood from the get-go. I took her to a Mexican restaurant.”
I cringed at that last part.
“I know,” he said. “Bad choice for a first date. Never take someone to a restaurant whose bathroom smells like the kitchen. Anyway, no matter what I tried to talk to her about, she just snipped at me. About halfway through dinner, she tells me she’s going to the bathroom. So I sit there and sit there and finally I’m really starting to worry about her because she’s been gone for nearly twenty minutes, so I text her. She replies back, ‘Oh, when I said I had to go to the bathroom, you assumed I meant the one at the restaurant?’ Turns out she went home.”
“That’s just mean!” I laughed.
“Yeah, needless to say that was our last date.”
We finished dinner and I was both thankful and surprised that he never mentioned anything about Bo. Maybe he didn’t know about him after all. When we got to Grandma Dean’s apartment, he opened the car door for me and started to walk me up the sidewalk to her door.
“I didn’t know if I should mention this earlier,” he said.
Uh oh. That was never good.
“But I stopped for gas before I came by to get you tonight and I ran into Detective Owen at the gas station.”
Oh please, tell me he didn’t say anything to you about Larry Kramer, I thought.
“Oh?” I asked. “What did he have to say?”
He chuckled. “That he wished a group of well-intentioned ladies would stay out of his investigations.”
Irene was right, he was like a broken record.
“I asked him how the investigation is going and he said something I thought you might find interesting.”
Now he had my full attention.
“He said that he was baffled because all the crimes associated with the case happened either between three and three-thirty in the afternoon or late in the evening.”
“That is weird.”
Before I had time to think about it any further, we reached the door. I turned to him and smiled. “Thank you for an…interesting evening.”
He took a step closer to me. “Interesting, huh? That’s it?”
I shrugged teasingly. “That’s it.”
He moved a little closer, his body now touching mine. Thanks to my heels, we were eye to eye. “You really do look
amazing tonight.” He moved a piece of hair out of my face and let his hand linger on my cheek. Then he slid his hand under my hair and held the back of my head, tipping my face toward his.
We had to be less than an inch apart as we looked into each other’s eyes. Finally, he moved forward and gently pressed his lips against mine. They were warm and soft. I could hear his breathing quicken as he pressed against me further and deepened his kiss. He had kissed me once before, and even though I had thought that was amazing, it paled in comparison to this.
Suddenly, we were blinded by a bright light that caught us by surprise. The porch light violently flashed off and on. Grandma Dean.
We both let out a laugh as he pulled away. He touched my face one more time. “I guess that means I should say good-bye.”
My heart was still racing and I didn’t want our evening to end so soon. “I guess so,” I finally said.
He kissed me on the forehead. “I really did have a nice night.”
I smiled. “Me too.”
I watched him walk down the sidewalk and get into his car. With a deep sigh, I turned and opened the door, expecting Grandma Dean to be standing there, waiting to give me a lecture. But the kitchen was dark. Apparently, she was saving her lecture for tomorrow.
16
We left at nine the next morning. The air was already thick with humidity and it made me feel even more weighed down and exhausted than usual. I had been awake most of the night thinking about Joe. I felt conflicted. For once, I wanted to take things slow and I felt like maybe he didn’t. I got the feeling that he was ready to settle down, ready to commit to someone. And for the first time in my adult life, I was on the other end of that spectrum.
“How was your date last night?” Grandma Dean must have been reading my mind as I sat in the passenger seat, silently rehashing my date.
I tried to hide my concerns. “It was fine. The food was amazing! That bread! With that olive oil!” My stomach started to rumble just thinking about it.
Grandma eyed me suspiciously, but thankfully, she didn’t ask anything more.
“So, I had an interesting conversation with my friend Delores last night,” she said, changing the subject.
“Oh yeah? What was so interesting about it?”
“Remember that man we came across on the sidewalk last week? The one with the heatstroke?”
I nodded.
“Well, it turns out it wasn’t heatstroke. He had traces of poison in his system.”
I sat up straight. “The killer tried to strike again?” I asked.
Grandma shrugged. “It looks like it, but we can’t say for sure.”
“Who is the guy? Do you know him? Does he have any connection to Stan or Artie?”
“Delores couldn’t tell me his name. She works at the hospital and that could get her fired. But after I got off the phone with her, I did a little snooping and I found out his name is Griffin Meyers. He’s a teacher in town. I called Stan and he doesn’t know him.”
Suddenly, she took a right at a stop sign when she should’ve taken a left. “You’re going the wrong way. We’re heading to your antique shop, remember?”
Grandma didn’t make eye contact as she answered. “We’re making a quick stop first.”
Uh oh. I had a feeling I knew where we were headed. Sure enough, we pulled into a neighborhood with towering houses and in front of Larry Kramer’s modern-style home.
“Can I just stay in the car?”
She laughed. “Not a chance.”
As we made our way up to his front door, I took a deep breath. The night I had run out of Larry’s backyard, I had promised myself I would never come back. And yet here I was, standing behind Grandma Dean as she rang the doorbell.
I expected to hear the traditional “ding dong” of the doorbell chiming from somewhere in the house. Instead, I heard what sounded like an auditorium full of people clapping. Grandma and I stood there looking at each other, slightly confused. “That’s his doorbell?” I asked.
The door flung open and there stood Larry Kramer, dressed in a suit with a button-down shirt that had the top three buttons undone. His dark chest hair curled around the edges of his shirt, tangling itself in the thick, gold chain that hung below his collar bone. “You like it?” he asked with a sly smile.
Grandma Dean and I looked at each other again, not sure what to say.
“The doorbell sound, I mean.”
“Oh yes,” Grandma said, clearly relieved. “It’s very…ostentatious.”
I cringed. That wasn’t a compliment.
But Larry beamed and puffed out his chest. “It is, isn’t it!”
He looked me up and down, and a cold chill ran up my spine. Even with Grandma Dean standing between us, I still didn’t feel safe around this guy. He winked at me. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”
I saw Grandma Dean stand up a little taller. She was putting on her game face, summoning all her strength to get this over as quickly as possible. “May we come in?”
Larry smiled and stepped aside, motioning for us to enter. “Of course! I would never turn away two beautiful women. Let’s chat in my office.”
We walked through the large entryway and I could nearly see the entire layout of his open concept house. A wide backless spiral staircase that looked like it was suspended from the ceiling with cables twirled up to a second floor. The few pieces of furniture had sharp lines and looked like they were made of glass. I didn’t see a single piece of furniture that looked like it would be comfortable.
The entryway had a door to the left and one to the right. He led us into the one on the right—his office. His desk was on the opposite side of the room and he crossed over and sat down. He motioned for us to sit on the leather chairs that faced it. As I sat down, I couldn’t help but notice the large framed painting of a naked woman, sitting at a table eating an apple.
Larry followed my eyes and turned to look at the painting. “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s my mother, God rest her soul.”
I tried to hide my look of horror, but I’d never been good at that sort of thing. I looked at Grandma and for a split-second, I saw the same look on her face. Thankfully, she recovered before Larry looked at her. “So how can I help you ladies?” he asked.
Grandma cleared her throat. “It was brought to our attention that you know about our little…escapade the other night.”
Larry’s face took on an overly concerned look. I could tell it was purely for show. He looked at us like we were children and he was the parent. “Yes, I’m sure you had your reasons, but that still gives you no right to pilfer through my things. If you wanted to know something, you should’ve just come to me. I’d be happy to answer any questions or concerns you have.”
Grandma Dean nodded. “I agree, we should’ve just come to you. And we’re all very sorry for our behavior and I can assure you, we won’t be so careless in the future.”
I thought that was an interesting choice of words. Was she telling him she wouldn’t break in again, or she would just be more careful next time so she wouldn’t get caught?
“Very well then,” he said, his broad smile returning. “All is forgiven, especially since I got something out of it.” He winked at me and made a kissy face, then wagged his tongue in the air.
I nearly threw up on his zebra-print rug beneath my feet.
“Since we have you,” Grandma said, ignoring his crude gesture. “We do have one little question for you…since you said we could ask you anything.”
“Shoot,” he said, leaning back in his chair and relaxing his hands behind his head.
“When we were here, we noticed a contract on your desk that had Lesus Moore’s name on it. And it looked like there was an identical contract behind that with someone else’s name on it. Why would two people have a contract for the same location?”
Larry laughed and leaned toward us. “I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell.”
The wild look in his eyes made my stomach feel sic
k and I immediately wanted to put my hands over my ears to shield them from whatever Larry was about to say. Unfortunately, I didn’t.
“Before I meet with a lady friend, I imagine myself signing a multi-million-dollar deal. It’s sort of an aphrodisiac.” He laughed a deep, throaty laugh. “I don’t need a little blue pill when I can just fill out a contract. It gets me going every time.”
“Well,” Grandma said, standing up. “I think we’ve wasted enough of your time today and you’ve assaulted enough of our senses.”
Fear gripped me for a moment. We were seconds from leaving and putting this whole thing behind us and Grandma Dean just had to say something that could upset Larry. I glanced up to see his expression and was surprised, and relieved, to see him smiling. Did anything offend this man?
He stepped around the desk and grabbed my hand as I followed Grandma Dean out of the room. He brought it to his mouth and kissed it slowly. “You come back and see me whenever you want. I’ll have an empty contract on my desk, waiting for you. It kicks in before the ink even dries.”
I pulled my hand away and ran out of the room nearly as fast as I had run out of his backyard. When we got back to Grandma Dean’s car, I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the package of antibacterial wipes.
“I might have to actually cut off this hand!” I said, rubbing it repeatedly with a handful of wipes. “He is the most disgusting man I’ve ever met in my life.”
Grandma reached over. “Hand me a couple. I feel like I need to wipe myself down.”
We scrubbed ourselves until we felt like we were sterile, using the entire package of wipes and a few Grandma Dean kept in her purse.
Grandma shuddered. “I was going to stop and get us a coffee, but I think I need something stronger after that visit.”
We weren’t sure where to get alcohol so early in the morning so we settled on coffee after all. We made a quick stop at the drive-thru at the Palm Breeze since we had to pass it on the way downtown to Grandma’s antique shop. I sipped on my vanilla frappe and tried to get the images of Larry’s naked mother out of my mind.
When we pulled up in front of her store, I tried to remember the last time I had been inside. Probably nearly a month. I had worked there for a little while until Grandma hired someone to take my place so I could devote all my time to opening our newest shop—which sat ready to go, just waiting for us to have time to hold its grand opening.
Glock Grannies Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3 Page 21
