Eli Hardy
I DIDN’T CALL Larissa. I knew she’d be awake. Jilly, her daughter, was three and she woke up with the sun, even after Larissa worked late nights. She refused to leave her with a sitter until the next morning. She sent the sitter home when she got there, and she was Mom until she had to work again. Sometimes I wondered if she had superhuman powers.
I rang the bell, and heard sounds of kid’s shows coming from inside. Then I heard Jilly call out, “Someone is here!”
The kid was cute. It was a shame her dad was missing out on her life. The guy had been a complete jerk. I’d told Larissa that when she was dating him. When he left, though, I didn’t say I told you so. That was cold, and I knew Larissa was hurt enough. She was a great mother. She never needed his sorry ass. Neither did Jilly. It was his loss.
The door opened and Larissa stood there with her hair in a messy knot on top of her head and a cup of coffee in her hand. She looked wide awake. Guess getting up at six gives you plenty of time to drink the coffee.
“Surprise, surprise, if it isn’t the drunk Romeo,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She turned around leaving the door open and walked back into the living area. Jilly was there playing with her toys and watching some show where a little girl was a toy doctor—or it looked like that anyway.
Larissa walked over and sat down on the sofa.
“Eli!” Jilly cried out with glee when a commercial came on. She ran over to hug my leg. I bent down and picked her up.
“Hey, squirt,” I said then kissed her head.
“Hey,” she replied giggling and curled against me. Then just as quickly, she squirmed to get down and went back to her toys.
“Want to know how you got home?” Larissa asked.
I wanted to know more than that.
“Or what happened after our third dance,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. Then she burst out laughing. “You’re kidding me, right? You weren’t that bad off!”
“It wasn’t my best night. Started out being frustrated with life. Drinking away the shit things had turned out with Micah and Jimmy. Then I saw her walk in and acted. Thought the no-women rule was dumb and moved over there. I regret it now. Trust me. My head is still pounding.”
Larissa was curled up on the sofa with her cup looking amused. “Well, she was one you wouldn’t want to forget. Beautiful, but so proper it was funny. You were taken with her.”
I knew all that. “Tell me what I don’t remember. Not a recap of what I do.”
Larissa sighed. “Well, okay. You danced a lot more than three dances. Then you left. You dropped your keys off with me because I insisted. You told me y’all were going for a walk on the beach. You were gone two hours. Then you came back when I was walking out after closing. I drove you home then had Micha drop your truck off. That’s it.”
That’s it? “We left to go walking?”
She nodded. “Yep. That’s it. She got in her Land Rover and drove away. That was it. Shame, too. She was one you’d want to keep. But her tag was a Florida one. She’s not from around here.”
I leaned my head back to rest on the chair and closed my eyes tightly in frustration. “Rosemary Beach, Florida to be exact. Want to know how I know that? Because I had breakfast with her this morning at Bliss and Nate’s. She’s Nate’s friend. Passing through on this road trip adventure she’s on. She owns a gun, too.”
“No way!” Larissa said sounding excited. I didn’t lift my head to look at her. “Oh, my God! You just walk into breakfast this morning not knowing, didn’t you? Does Bliss know about last night?”
She was acting like this was a book and she needed to know the next chapter. I sighed. “No, I didn’t know. Walked right in and ‘bam’ there she was. I told them we had met last night. That’s all. She barely spoke to me or looked at me. I need to know what I did to make her act that way,” I looked up then. “And she was as damn perfect as I thought she was when I was drunk. How is that? I thought she’d have some terrible flaw that my drunken vision was missing. But nothing. Just like I remembered.”
Larissa giggled. “This is epic. Damn, I mean dang,” she quickly corrected herself then looked to see if Jilly had been paying attention. Jilly had already been kicked out of daycare for cursing. It was frowned upon to tell the teacher you didn’t want to take a fucking nap. It was cause for dismissal. Larissa was working on cleaning up her three-year-old’s language.
“The killer was I think Bliss was trying to set us up.”
Larissa smiled over her cup. “She was a little late for that.”
“Yeah, and Lila—who they called Lila Kate—she didn’t say much at all. Made it real clear she hadn’t enjoyed the night before nor did she like having breakfast with me.”
“You mean she dropped the polite, proper thing?”
“Oh, no. She had that going on. She just didn’t speak to me unless forced.”
“Ouch.”
Ouch wasn’t what I was thinking. More like what the hell did I do?
“So you have no idea what we did when we walked? Where we went?”
“I was working—you know my job? Serving drinks?” Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on me.
“Maybe I can get her alone, and we can talk?”
“She staying in town that long?”
That part sucked. “No.”
Larissa shrugged. “Then let it go.”
If only I could. I didn’t want to let it go, and I didn’t want to let her go. Even if it was obvious I’d have to do both.
I gave Jilly another hug, but she was more interested in the dump truck that the little girl was fixing on television. I thanked Larissa and headed for the door.
“Please tell me if you see her again,” Larissa called out. “I gotta know what happens next.”
I rolled my eyes and closed the door behind me. That gave me a little more info, but now that I knew I left with her, I wanted to talk to her. What happened in those two hours had to do with why Lila didn’t like me today. If I’d crossed a line or something I needed to know. Apologize. Shit. Do something!