I leaned into Cookie. “Does she know it’s not called—?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Are you gonna tell her?”
“No. It’s much funnier this way.”
I chuckled, then remembered Cookie’s doctor’s appointment the day before. “How’d your visit go? Any new debilitating diseases I should know about?”
“No, but I have reaffirmed my respect for lubricating jelly.”
“Fiona’s here!” Amber said, flipping her cell phone closed and rushing out the door. She rushed back in, kissed her mom on the cheek, kissed me on the cheek—the good one—then rushed back out again.
Cookie watched her go. “She’s like a hurricane on crystal meth.”
“Have you considered Valium?” I asked.
“For her or me?” She laughed and headed for the coffeepot. “I get the first cup.”
“When do you not get the first cup? So, what’d the doc say?” Cookie didn’t like talking about it, but she’d once fought breast cancer, and the breast cancer almost won.
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “He’s sending me to this other doctor, some kind of guru in the medical community.”
“Really? What’s his name?”
“Dr.— Hell, I don’t know.”
“Oh, him.” I grinned. “So he’s good?”
“Supposedly. I think he invented internal organs or something.”
“Well, that’s a plus.”
She poured two cups, then plopped down beside me again. “No, I’m fine.” She stirred sugar and cream into her coffee. “I think my doc just wants to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
“He’s cautious,” I said, stirring my own cup. “I like that in a person, especially one with the power of life and death at his fingertips.”
“Well, I don’t want you to worry is all. I haven’t felt this good in years. I think you keep me young.” She winked from behind her cup.
After a long sip, I asked, “Isn’t that Amber’s job?”
She snorted. “Amber takes every opportunity possible to tell me how old and uninteresting I am. ‘You’re nothing like Charley,’ she says. Repeatedly. She’s about ninety percent positive you hung the moon.”
“At least someone thinks so,” I said with a shrug of my brows.
“Uh-oh,” she said, putting her cup down. “Did you have another run-in with that hot skiptracer?”
I slumped back into my chair, annoyed that he’d even been mentioned. And in my own apartment, no less. “He’s such a jerk.”
“You did,” she said, her face brightening. She had quite the thing for Garrett. It was … disturbing. “So, spill.” She scooted closer. “What did he say? Did you two have words? A fistfight? Angry sex?”
“Ew,” I said, crinkling my nose. “Not even if he was the last hot skiptracer on Earth.”
“Then what? You have to tell me.” She grabbed my shirt collar with her free hand. I tried not to giggle. “When will you realize I live vicariously through you?”
“You do?”
“Duh.” She smoothed my collar and went back to her coffee. “I have a teenage daughter. I have no social life. No agenda that doesn’t involve the Disney Channel. And sex,” she said with a dramatic wave of her hand. “Don’t even get me started. I haven’t had sex with anything non-battery-powered in years. I need details, Charley.”
After I recovered from the non-battery-powered comment, I said, “I tried to set you up with Delivery Dave.”
“The bread guy?” She thought about it, her mouth a grim line. “I guess I could do worse.”
A chuckle escaped me, and she smiled.
“So, are you gonna tell me what happened last night?” she asked.
“Ah, yes. Last night.” I went into the whole evening with Rosie’s ass**le husband, assuring her I’d gotten Rosie on the plane and safely out of the country. Then I told her about my morning with the other ass**le, Garrett the skeptic skiptracer. Then I told her about my disastrous time with Elizabeth’s sister. Then I told her the best part. The Reyes part.
“So, Reyes, huh?”
“Yeah.”
She laughed. “Could you say that with a little more sigh?”
I grinned and scooped a layer of strawberry cream cheese onto a blueberry bagel, getting a serving of grains, dairy, and fruit in one shot. “The first and only time I’ve ever seen him was that night in the South Valley with Gemma.”
“What night?” Then Cookie’s eyes widened. “You mean?”
“I mean. If I’m not mistaken, it’s him.”
She knew the story. I’d only told her a dozen times. At least. As Cookie sat speechless, I thought back to what I knew about Reyes. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much.
I was a freshman in high school the one and only time I’d seen him, and my psycho sister Gemma was a senior. Ever true to form, she was trying to graduate high school a semester early so she could start college full-time, but graduating early involved a class project she was too chicken to pull off by herself. Enter Charlotte Davidson, supersister, saint, and project getter-doner.
Not, however, without complaint. Oddly, I could remember our conversation like it was moments ago. But twelve years had passed since that terrible and beautiful night. A night I would never forget.