“Want me to get it?” Mia asked, her eyes nervously flicking toward the door.
“No.” I got up and set the pen down. “I’m not opening it until I know who it is.” Glancing around for something to use as a weapon, I decided on a butcher knife. Mia and Coco gasped when I pulled it from the block, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Cautiously, I moved for the door, blade raised. “Who is it?”
“It’s Charlie. I have something for you.”
I lowered the knife and opened the door. My heart thumped hard, and I decided it was adrenaline, not attraction. Big difference. Big, big, big.
“Hi.”
“Hi. It’s only been like five minutes. You checked out the station already?”
“Not yet. I had to finish my report. I’m heading there now, but I wanted to give you this first.” He held out his hand, which held a twenty dollar bill.
I stared at it. “What’s that for?”
“I’m paying you back the money I stole from your lemonade stand. I feel bad about it now.”
My eyebrows rose. “Now you feel bad about it? Like twenty years later? What’s the extra eight fifty for, interest? Or did you want change?”
He smiled. “Nah, keep the change.” When I didn’t take it, he tucked it into the pocket of my robe. “Planning to stab me, Red?”
I looked down at the knife in my hand, then back at him. “I might, if you keep calling me that.”
He held up his hands. “I come in peace.”
“Fine. Now go in peace.” I pulled the twenty from my pocket and held it out. “And take this back. I don’t need charity. Give it to St. Jude’s, which is where it was supposed to go in the first place.”
He dropped his hands. “Take it. It’s yours.” Then he grinned mischievously. “Put it toward a real pair of hand cuffs.”
I slammed the door in his face. “God, he’s annoying.”
“What was that all about?” Mia asked. She was pouring a glass of water into the kitchen herbs I had on the windowsill in little pots that said BLOOM on them. Although in my case they might as well say DIE because for some reason I can never remember to water plants.
“It was Charlie Dwyer again.” I replaced the knife in the block and touched my cheeks, hoping they weren’t as red as they felt. “He wanted to pay back the money he stole from me almost twenty years ago, of all things.”
“Oh?” She and Coco exchanged a look, which I decided not to acknowledge. “It’s nice that he’s taking a special interest in you.”
“He should, as a public safety officer,” I huffed, plunking down on the stool again. I avoided meeting their eyes and picked up the pen. “If they would have caught this guy already, I wouldn’t have been robbed tonight. Number one,” I said loudly, eager to drop the subject, “laptop computer.”
I’d like to sit on his lap.
I forced myself to concentrate, gripping the penis—ahem, the pencil—way harder than necessary. After I wrote down everything the burglar took and its replacement value, we searched for alarms on Mia’s iPad. It looked like the least expensive option would be to have my cable company put in a wireless system. But it would add to my cable bill each month, and I was on a really tight butt—tight budget, tight budget—right now. (Jesus, what was the matter with me? Could there be a more inappropriate time to be thinking about Charlie Dwyer’s ass?)
Where was I? Budget. Right.
“God, why did I have to make that big announcement about new flooring?” I moaned. “I told everyone I’d have a brand new surface in the downstairs room by Christmas.”
“People will understand.” Coco rubbed my back. “These things happen.”
I stared at the list. “You guys. I have to say something out loud.”
I want to ride Charlie Dwyer like a deranged cowgirl.
“Go ahead, honey.”
I took a deep breath. Shooed the wasp away. “I’m scared I did the wrong thing taking over that studio.”
“Why?” Mia asked. “Are the kids driving you crazy?”
“It’s not the kids so much as the mothers. It’s stuff that has nothing to do with actual dancing, either. It’s jealousy and resentment and she-said-this and she-said-that and threatening to leave if I don’t put so-and-so in this number or partner her with him or bring in this particular choreographer…nothing but drama.”
“Are they really that bad?” Mia looked surprised.
“Yes.” I took another drink. If only I had some way to relieve the stress…for example, taking out my frustration on Charlie Dwyer’s cock.
“I don’t know how you stand it,” Coco said, taking another handful of chips. “Dance moms sound as bad as brides.”
“At least you can be done with a bride once her wedding is over. I’m stuck with these mothers for years unless I tell them to take a hike.”
“So tell them to take a hike.” Mia shrugged, as if it were that easy.
“I can’t. If one of my competitive dancers leaves, more will follow. The loudmouth ones have a lot of influence.” I dropped my forehead to the cool marble. “I’m a smaller studio as it is, and it’s hard to compete with the big powerhouses that have a thousand kids and five huge rooms and mega bucks. I have to deal with them. But I have to stop taking their phone calls at night.” And do something else with my time, like…. No! Stop it! No more Charlie Dwyer thoughts. You can’t escape into a fantasy this time. You have actual problems here. Face them.
“They have your phone number?”
In my mind, I grabbed a fly swatter, knocked the wasp to the ground and stomped on it.
When I was sure it was dead, I picked my head up and nodded miserably. “I gave it out last year as part of this whole Better Communication campaign. Told them to call me with questions or concerns at any time.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Mia asked, her eyes wide.
I groaned. “I wasn’t. I had no idea what I was in for—now they email me and text me and call me twenty-four seven with all their complaints. Tonight a mom caught me in the parking lot to tell me that her daughter can’t be at the mandatory choreography session tomorrow because she’s going to an audition for a ketchup commercial. Ketchup!” I yelled, as if it were ketchup’s fault. “Yesterday I would have said ‘OK, fine’ but today I summoned all my courage and told her she’s out of the piece if she can’t make it.”
“Good for you,” cheered Mia. “You’re too nice. Except to your plants.” She glanced at my windowsill.
“Look, I have bigger problems than my plants, OK?” I said miserably. “There’s a leak in the studio ceiling, the paint is peeling in the lobby, and the wood floor in the downstairs studio is totally warped. The entire place needs a very expensive makeover.” My voice was shaking by now, my throat tight. “And I knew that when I took over and totally planned to take care of it. But I’ve been so busy with the day-to-day management and teaching, I haven’t had time to get to all that.” Tears spilled over, and I pressed my fingertips to my eyes.
I kind of wanted the wasp back.
“Erin, you don’t have to do all this alone. We can help you,” Mia said.
“Of course we can,” Coco added. “I wish you’d have said something before.”
“Thanks, but I know you guys are busy. You’ve got houses to renovate and weddings to plan and husbands and fiancés and grandmothers to manage, not to mention a business to run.” I sat up a little taller. “Actually, you know what? It helps just to talk about it.” I did feel a little better now that I finally admitted to someone that owning a dance studio wasn’t entirely the dream job I’d thought it would be.
“We are never too busy to help you,” said Mia, commandeering the pen and paper from me. “Now let’s make a to-do list for you. It’s easier to face a lot of work if you have a plan. You should start by hanging those shades in here. Tomorrow.” She looked down at me pointedly.
“OK.” I emptied my wine glass and set it down. “I think I need a drill.”
“We have a drill. I’ll ask Lucas where it is.”
“So do we,” Coco added. Then she grinned. “Or you could call that cop. He looks like he’d be handy with a drill.”
Yes! Drill me, Charlie Dwyer. Hard!
“No way.” I shook my head. “Charlie Dwyer will do no drilling in this house. Ever.” Coco took a sip of her wine, looking at me over the top of the glass as if she knew better.
Confession: Part of me hoped she did. Certain parts, anyway.
#
When the wine bottle was empty, we rinsed our glasses, double-checked the locks again, and went upstairs. Mia and Coco took the guest room, which held the trundle sleigh bed from my childhood room, and I went to my room to get them some comfortable clothes to sleep in.
On my way I ducked into the bathroom to grab the Box and Naughty Rabbit from under the sink. Not that Mia or Coco would be so shocked if they saw those things, but they were much more open about sex than I was. They talked freely about doing things I’d only fantasized about.
And I fantasized a lot.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t had good sex—I had. At least I thought I had. It’s just that I’d dated such nice guys. Guys my mother adored and whose mothers adored me, said what a sweet girl I was. Guys who treated me like gold. Guys who would never steal a hamster or hold up a lemonade stand. Guys who would pretend they hadn’t seen the fuzzy handcuffs in the bathroom.
Gentlemen.
But I could never bring myself to be totally honest with a gentleman about the things I wanted sexually. I felt like it would be too shocking, like maybe if they knew the things in my head, they’d think I wasn’t the girl they (and their mothers) believed me to be.
And to be honest, I’d never experienced any of the insane chemistry I saw between Coco and Nick or Mia and Lucas, so holding back hadn’t been that difficult. Now, this could be because one boyfriend came out shortly after our relationship fizzled, and the other decided to join the priesthood. (I’m not even kidding. Those were my two serious relationships—a gay man and a priest.) Anyway, it would be nice to find someone with that spark.
Until then, there was work to be done, there was late-night wine with friends, and there was Charlie Dwyer and the Naughty Rabbit.
Damn it—I meant Brad Pitt. There was Brad Pitt and the Naughty Rabbit.
Although next time, I might put him in uniform.
He had to have been a cop in something, right?