Something to Dye For (Curl Up and Dye Mysteries, #2)

by Aimee Nicole Walker

  “You’re perfect for him,” the woman dressed in her Sunday finest standing beside Meredith said. She had the same mocha-colored skin and keen brown eyes that sparkled with mirth as Josh’s best friend. I didn’t have to rely too heavily on my detecting skills to know I was standing in front of Meredith’s mother. “You give that sass right back to him and keep him on his toes.” I was glad to hear that my earlier speculation had been right. “Besides, I know love when I see it.”

  I leaned forward and said softly, “Don’t tell him that or…”

  “I’ll scare him to death,” she finished for me. “I know how my boy works, and yes, I claim him as my own. I promised Bertie that I would look after him when she moved to Florida and I take my promises seriously.” She extended her hand to me and said, “I’m Wilhelmina Richmond, by the way. My friends call me Willa.” I shook her hand and after a long awkward pause she added, “That includes you too.”

  “It’s wonderful to meet you, Willa.” The earlier mention of Josh’s mom reminded me that I would be meeting her in a few weeks. I wanted to do something nice when I met Bertie, perhaps gift her a bottle of her favorite perfume or something, and asked Willa for suggestions.

  “Do you really want to make a good impression on Bertie?” she asked me.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Respect,” she said then looked at Meredith. “Take note of how a man should talk to your mother.” I raised my brow, wondering what she was referring to but decided to ask Meredith later because I knew Josh would double back and look for me before too much longer. Willa locked her eyes on mine and said, “Treat her son the way he deserves to be treated and I promise you that she’s gonna love you.” It sounded too simple to be true, but that’s exactly how I would feel if I had a son or daughter.

  As I predicted, Josh returned to my side mere seconds after Willa finished her sentence. “Mama Richmond,” he said before he was wrapped tight in a hug. “I miss your face.”

  “Boy, I’ve lived in the same house for nearly fifteen years. Do I need to print off a map for you or are you just playing hard to get?” Then she looked at me and amended, “Or, perhaps you’ve been very busy.” Josh wasn’t the only one who blushed after Willa’s comment. “I remember what it was like when things were new.”

  “Mama,” Meredith said, but her admonishment was ruined by her snort.

  “I’ll stop over tomorrow,” Josh promised, tugging on my arm to get me to follow. “This guy made me late and I have to get a move on if I’m going to make dinner an amazing event.”

  “Dinner is always an amazing event,” Meredith countered.

  “Thanks, love,” Josh told her as he walked backwards. I took the cart from him in fear that he’d run someone over. “I’ll see you tonight.” He then blew air kisses at Willa and said, “And you tomorrow.”

  “What’s for dinner?” I asked Josh once he turned back around. I hadn’t missed a Sunday dinner since he first invited me after we kissed and made up after he returned from Thanksgiving with his family in Florida. I was the first guy Josh ever invited over to the precious night he only shared with the two people closest to him in the world–Chaz and Meredith.

  “You’re in for a real treat,” he said proudly. “I’m making you beef stew and cornbread.” I didn’t miss how he said he was making it for me.

  My mouth watered at the thought and I groaned so loud that people turned to look. “He’s making cornbread,” I said, as if that explained everything.

  “Homemade cornbread,” Josh amended. “Not some crappy box mix.” Some lady, who’d just tossed a name brand box of cornbread mix in her cart, gave him the side-eye and sped away.

  The rest of the trip through the store was less eventful and Josh refrained from insulting anyone else with talk about his superior cooking skills. He did take his sweet old-fashioned time squeezing the produce in a way that made me think of the way he milked my balls right before we arrived. I couldn’t tell if he was dilly dallying to annoy and tease me or if he was that particular about his fruit. I patiently pushed the cart without saying a single word and exchanged sympathetic looks with other men who were in the same boat as me. I couldn’t wait to get back ho… to his house and smell the amazingness that I knew his beef stew would be.

  It seemed like days before we were once again back in my car heading to Josh’s house to put away his groceries and pet supplies. A light snow had begun to fall while we were inside the store so I was paying more attention to the roads than whatever Josh was saying at the time. I had seen just how quickly the roads got slick when the temperature hovered around or was below freezing and wrecking was the last thing I wanted to do that day.

  “Are you paying attention?” he asked primly.

  “Not really.” Hey, I wanted points for honesty, but it didn’t look like I was going to get them.

  “That just added an extra day on before you get to see my studio and the special routine I have planned for you.”

  I sat up straighter in my seat and glanced over at him quickly to see if he was joking. He was not. It was the first time he ever mentioned a special routine and I was damn determined to knock that day off my sentence. “I’m sorry, dear.” The snort Josh gave told me that my voice was anything but the contrite one I had planned.

  “I was saying,” Josh said exaggeratingly, “that I read an article online yesterday that said a lot of gay couples start looking alike after they’ve dated for a while. I’m just stating for the record that we,” I saw him gesture his finger between us out of the corner of my eye, “will never be that couple.”

  I gasped as if I was truly affronted when I was actually excited that he thought of us as a couple, even though the R word had yet to be used by either of us. “Are you saying that you think I’m ugly?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Detective…” He skipped whatever insult he was about to use when I pinned him with the same scowl I gave perps when I played bad cop. “I simply meant that I like how different we are as individuals. I think we complement each other.”

  His words made my heart dance in my chest. “I agree,” I told him. I turned to face him once I was stopped at a four-way stop. I hooked my finger in his jacket and pulled him to me for a quick kiss. “Besides, there’s no way my boys want to be trapped in skinny jeans after all these years wearing Levi’s.”

  Josh laughed hard, but I wasn’t sure if it was due to my words or the idea of me crammed into skinny jeans. I loved how they looked on him, but there was no amount of money in the world that would entice me to wear them.

  “I like the way you look in my t-shirts though,” I told him once I resumed driving back toward his house. If I was keeping score of the number of times I rendered Josh speechless it would probably be a total of two times after he heard my t-shirt comment.

  I wouldn’t say he stiffened exactly, but there was a sudden stillness to him. Josh was never still. I worried that I went too far or pushed too fast until he placed his hand on my leg and patted it. “I like wearing your shirts because they smell like you.” I had to swallow hard twice to dislodge the lump of emotion stuck in my throat. I knew there was so much more to his words than him admitting that he liked my body wash.

  I pulled into his driveway at the rear of his house and parked next to his teal green Mini Cooper convertible. I wanted so badly to expand on the emotional exchange that we both had, but I didn’t want to push my luck. Instead, I posed to him the question that just popped into my head. “What’s the name of your car?” I knew that there was no way in hell that Josh didn’t have a name for her. He loved that car as much as I loved Charlotte. His pink-tinged cheeks told me that he was embarrassed about the name he chose for his car. He mumbled something beneath his breath, but it was too soft for me to hear. “What was that?”

  “Princess!”

  “It’s cute,” I replied, “like the car and like…”

  “Do not say like her owner.” Josh’s shrewd eyes locked on my twitching lips as I fought back t
he urge to laugh.

  “I would never.”

  Josh’s response was to get out of my car and walk around to the trunk so he could start unloading groceries. I was feeling a tad sassy myself and didn’t push the button to open it for him. Instead I sat in my car and watched him through my rearview mirror until he lowered his head and looked at me through the rear windshield and mouthed the words “two days.”

  I popped the trunk almost as fast as I could spring an erection. The smug smile on his face told me that he had me right where he wanted me–by the balls. Yeah, well, I had my own little victory with him admitting he liked to smell like me. In my book, it made us both winners. If I had my way, we both would be celebrating our victories together after his friends went home.

  I WASN’T ADDICTED TO Gabe. I wasn’t addicted to Gabe. I wasn’t… oh, damn it. I was fucking addicted to Gabe. I had spent a few consecutive nights sleeping beside him and then found that I couldn’t sleep once we went back to separate beds. I was surprised I wasn’t shaking from withdrawal and scheming to find a way to get my next Gabe fix. My brain cautioned me to slow things down and that I was allowing him to get too close too fast, but my heart and body told my brain to take a damn vacation from overthinking for a damn change.

  I reached for my phone on the bedside table to text him but stopped myself. It was well past midnight on a work night for him. He needed his sleep to concentrate on solving his drug case and Lord knows I didn’t let him rest much over the past weekend. I also knew he wouldn’t be sleeping much on Wednesday when I did my big studio reveal and routine for him.

  Instead of pestering Gabe, I got out of bed and fixed a mug of chamomile tea to try and help soothe me to sleep. I curled up with Diva on the sofa and turned on a rerun of my favorite cooking show. “Who’s the best kitty in the world?” I cooed while I scratched her ears. Diva purred loudly and bumped her head against my cup of tea so that I had to put it down and use both hands to please her.

  Diva curled up on my chest and tucked her head beneath my chin. The warmth of her fur and gentle vibration of her purring worked better than any tea and I found myself nodding off right when the judges were about to test the food that the reality show contestants prepared. The show invaded my dreams and the panel of celebrity chefs was replaced by Chaz, Meredith, and Gabe. The wide-eyed, hopeful culinary students morphed into different versions of me. There were three Joshes, all in different outfits and obviously, none that I would’ve picked. That flannel shirt lumberjack look didn’t work for me at all.

  Sunday dinners morphed into a judging contest and instead of normal brilliant dishes, I served up octopus tentacle stew and ox tail carbonara. What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck!

  “This tentacle stew is a tad bit under seasoned,” Chef Gabe said with a scowl on his face. “It’s not your best dish in this competition, Josh.”

  Lumberjack Josh looked crestfallen but what the hell did he expect serving up nasty shit like that? Next up was Emo Josh dressed all in black and who clearly had a heavy hand when applying eye liner. I worried that the black skinny jeans he wore were so tight they would cut the circulation off to his cock.

  Chef Chaz took a bite of ox tail carbonara and spit it back out. “I can’t even…” He waved his hand dramatically and a member of the crew came and took the offensive plate away.

  Last up to be judged was Preppy Josh, who I admit was my favorite. That light blue Oxford button-up shirt and pink sweater tied around his neck was a little much for me, but of the three Joshes he appeared to be taking the competition most serious.

  “This is an unusual spin on country fried crow,” Chef Meredith said after taking a bite. She tilted her head to the side as if she couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing. She took another small bite and then smiled broadly. “I like it, Josh. There’s this little burst of heat at the back of my throat that gives it an extra something. Well done.”

  “Yasssss, bitch.” Preppy Josh twirled in celebration.

  “Excuse me,” Chef Meredith said. I could tell by the look on her face that she’d be serving up some crow for Preppy Josh to eat. Dumb fool. Meredith opened her mouth to blast him, but I was ripped out of my sleep by the sound of a car alarm going off.

  I had always heard that moms could always tell their crying baby apart from others in a room and I believed it because I could clearly tell my baby’s cry of distress from my neighbor’s Fiat 500. “Damn cat,” I muttered as I set Diva on the sofa and rose to my feet. Diva was insulted by my comment and snagged my pajama bottoms with her claw before I could walk away. “Aww, not you, baby girl. I was talking about that unfortunate cat who lives next door who sets off a different alarm almost nightly. Scruffy or some stupid shit name,” I told Diva.

  She retracted her claw and permitted me to leave. I put on my robe and slid my feet in my slippers before I grabbed my car keys. My Princess sometimes played hard to get and required me to stick my key in the door rather than push a button on the fob before she would stop her crying.

  I flipped on the outside light next to the back door and made my way carefully down the icy steps to the driveway. If I ever cleaned out all the crap in my garage, I could store Princess inside and not worry about her alarm being set off by a dumb cat. I slipped and slid my way over to the car and couldn’t believe what I saw when I got there. All four of my tires had been slashed. I unlocked Princess to turn off the alarm then stood there staring at my baby and wondering who would violate her in such a hateful way.

  An eerie feeling came over me, as if I was being watched. I looked up and down the alley, but didn’t see anything out of the norm other than the street light closest to my driveway was out. It had been working when I walked Gabe to his car earlier that night because I remembered remarking about how pretty the snowflakes looked in the beam of light. The light could’ve gone out on its own, but I had a sneaky suspicion that wasn’t the case. I was too freaked out to investigate so I returned inside the house and called the police.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind it should’ve occurred to me to call my hunky detective of a boyfriend first, but it didn’t. Unfortunately for me, one of the officers who arrived on the scene called him instead of me. In my opinion, four uniformed officers to answer a vandalism call seemed to be a tad bit excessive. Hell, I didn’t even know we had four cops on duty at one time. Regardless, one of the three extra cops had nothing better to do than call Gabe while the first officer took my statement and completed a report. The thunderous look on Gabe’s face when he arrived made me want to hide in my closet, but those days were long past.

  I also noticed that the Three Stooges suddenly got busier once he arrived. One of them even found a clue, admittedly one that validated the uneasy feeling I had when I first discovered that my tires had been slashed. “Detective Wyatt, it appears that the street light in the alley was purposely busted. I found shards of glass below on the ground beneath the light,” he said, interrupting the stare down Gabe was giving me.

  “Stay inside where it’s warm and don’t bother trying to lock me out. We are going to have a conversation when I return.” Gabe’s tone of voice and high-handed behavior should’ve pissed me off, but the shaking I felt in my body had nothing to do with fear or anger. Damn him.

  My tea from earlier was ice cold and disgusting so I made a fresh cup, made myself comfy on the sofa, and flipped on a new show I hadn’t seen before called Who’s Your Fryin’ Daddy? The host went to carnivals and county fairs from coast to coast and featured deep fried favorites. I got so caught up in the weird shit that some people liked to fry that I was able to temporarily forget the damage to my poor, pitiful Princess until Gabe returned upstairs by himself.

  “Where’s the other officers?” I asked. I tilted my head to look around him, hoping that one or more would be following behind him, but no such luck.

  “I sent them all on their way,” Gabe replied sternly. Instead of sitting on the couch next to me or the club chair beside the couch, Gabe squatted down i
n front of me. “Are you okay?” I was glad to see that concern had replaced the majority of the anger he felt earlier, although I could still see it simmering around the edges of worry in his eyes. I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  “I’m fine, Gabe, but Princess…”

  “Forget the car for a moment, Josh. Your insurance company will replace the tires. Princess will be fixed. It’s you that I’m worried about.” He released a shaky breath and I realized that his concern went deeper than I had first realized. I knew that Gabe had a protective streak, but I thought his reaction to a little bit of vandalism was disproportionate.

  “What am I not understanding here?” I asked him.

  “Tell me exactly what happened?” Gabe avoided my question, which irritated me. It was the middle of the night and I’d had very little beauty sleep so I wasn’t surprised when I felt the ugly coming to the surface.

  “Why don’t you read the report?” I fired back.

  “Now is not the time for your attitude, Josh. I’ll overlook that you called the police department instead of me… for now, but I need you to answer my question. What exactly happened?”

  I wasn’t one to give in easy. “Well, I couldn’t fall asleep so I fixed myself a cup of warm tea and curled up with the cat on the couch. I was watching some food reality show and next thing I knew I was having a dream. You were there, Meredith was there, Chaz was there, and…”

  “Josh!” Gabe rose to his feet and paced angrily away from me while sliding his hands through his hair. He turned to face me and gave his hair a theatrical yank to let me know how mad I drove him. “Damn it! You could be in serious danger and…”

  “Wait a damn minute! How do you jump from four flat tires to serious danger, Gabe?” I was too shocked to come up with a cutesy name for him just then.

  “Remember when I told you about the threats made to Nate Turner?” Gabe asked. I nodded my head but failed to see what I had in common with a sleazebag night club owner who might’ve been involved in illegal activities. I didn’t so much as cheat on my taxes. “His tires were slashed just like yours.”