But first, she needed some air.
The security monitors showed the crowd had died down somewhat, so she didn’t feel guilty leaving Jeremy on his own so she could grab a short break. She suddenly felt so tired, like her legs were made of canvas bags filled with sand and she was barely able to drag them along. Funds be damned, she decided a blast of caffeine might help and found herself at Starbucks without really remembering how she got there.
Late afternoons on Saturday didn’t have a lot of people looking for coffee, apparently, as there were only two other people in line when Kelsey entered and took her place. She waited patiently, studying the menu board and trying to concentrate hard on it so her brain wouldn’t be dragged back to the Land of Financial Ruin. She placed her order for an iced mocha latte, paid, and moved down the counter. She was checking her phone when a voice nearby said, “It’s nice to see you again, Shelley.”
Because that wasn’t her name, it took Kelsey a beat or two before she absorbed the words, unscrambled them, and realized who was talking. She whipped her head around and met the gaze of some stunningly blue eyes. “Well, hello there, Lisa. It’s nice to see you again as well.”
Lisa’s lovely mouth curved into a gentle smile. “A Saturday afternoon, huh?”
“I needed a little help getting through the rest of my work day.”
“Oh, you’re working on the weekend. Me, too.” She held up a hand before Kelsey could speak. “Let me guess.” She tapped a long finger against her lips as she thought, and Kelsey had a flash of the lip gloss print on her last cup of coffee. It made her stomach tense up. In that good kind of way. “You’re a hair stylist and Saturdays are your biggest day.”
I can play this game, Kelsey thought as something deliciously sensual passed through her. “Exactly right. And you...” She looked at Lisa’s outfit, a black pantsuit just as perfect and professional as the last time. “You’re a lawyer. For the DA’s office. You have to get your coffee and get back in time for the interrogation that’s about to happen, um, downtown.”
Lisa threw her head back and laughed, a big, hearty laugh that wasn’t at all what Kelsey would’ve expected hers to sound like. “Perfect. I love it. I’m keeping that.”
“Me, too.”
Their coffees were announced, Lisa getting the same caramel macchiato with soy milk as last time. “You changed yours up,” she commented as Kelsey’s latte slid across the counter.
“I like to keep the baristas on their toes.”
“Understandably.” Lisa sipped her drink. “Well, I need to head back to the, um, prison. Next time I see you, I want to hear all about your wackiest client that day. Deal?”
“Only if you fill me in on your latest murder case.”
“You got it.” With a wave, Lisa said, “Catch you next time, Shelley.”
And for the second time in a week, Kelsey found herself watching this beautiful blonde walk out of her life, watching her legs, her hips, her amazing ass, and not knowing if she’d ever see her again.
The little thrill of excitement it gave her was the first she’d felt in a very, very long time.
***
Boomer’s was a small sports bar about halfway between Kelsey’s apartment and the building where Hannah worked. They’d met up there a couple of times after work, but never on a weekend. It wasn’t often that Kelsey saw Hannah in anything other than her work scrubs or her softball uniform, but tonight, she looked like a regular human in jeans, a red V-neck tank top, and red Chucks on her feet. She sat at the bar with a beer in front of her and looked over at the door when Kelsey opened it.
“Hey, you,” she said, her face lighting up. She slid off her barstool and held out an arm. Hannah was the queen of the one-armed hug, and as always, Kelsey slipped under it and let Hannah squeeze her shoulders. “How was work?”
Kelsey groaned to illustrate her point as she took a seat. The bartender was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties who looked like he’d seen a thing or two in his time behind the bar. But his eyes were kind and crinkled a little when he smiled and asked Kelsey what he could get for her.
“Do you have any white wine?” she asked him.
“I’ve got a Chardonnay and a Pinot Grigio. Oh, and a Reisling.”
“The Pinot, please.”
“You got it.”
As he left to pour her wine, Hannah said, “So?”
Kelsey raised her eyebrows. “So what?”
“Why the groan? Unruly customer today?”
“Oh, that.” Kelsey shook her head as she recalled the superior attitude of Betsy Siegler, her utter lack of compassion for the position she was putting Kelsey in. “Unruly daughter of my landlady is more like it.”
“Explain.” Hannah made a motion for the bartender to put Kelsey’s wine on her tab. He gave a nod and set the glass down on the bar.
“You don’t have to buy that,” Kelsey protested.
“I know that. I want to. You can get the next round.” Hannah sipped her beer. “Tell me what happened.”
With a deep sigh, Kelsey told the story, how Betsy Siegler had basically come into the store, dropped a bomb Kelsey was pretty sure she couldn’t avoid, and left. “I was just kind of...stunned.”
“It sucks, absolutely. Maybe she won’t raise it a lot?” Hannah shrugged and her expression was hopeful.
“I can’t afford for her to raise it at all,” Kelsey told her. “I am budgeted down to the penny. When I signed the lease, I was under the impression I’d have a full year at that cost, so that’s what I used to base all my other costs on. This will throw everything off, no matter how small the raise is.” She didn’t get into the fact that she’d really cut things closer than she should have, but she was sure her father would remind her of that. The little strip mall that housed Common Scents had the lowest rent she could find in the area. She’d counted on it staying that way for a good twelve months.
“You can’t let it stress you out, though. That doesn’t do you any good.”
Kelsey pressed her lips together to keep from biting out a sarcastic comment. Hannah was trying to be supportive. She knew that. But Hannah was twenty-five and still lived with her parents. She was saving money so she could get her own place, but still. She didn’t have bills like Kelsey did. She didn’t really get the challenges of being on her own financially, let alone owning her own business. Kelsey just nodded. “That’s true.” She sipped her wine. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure.” Hannah finished her beer and gestured for another.
“I’ve got that one,” Kelsey told the bartender.
“So.” Hannah put her forearms on the bar and scrutinized Kelsey. “Tell me about the ex.”
Fabulous. Another subject she preferred to ignore.
“There’s not a lot to tell,” she said in an obvious attempt to deflect.
“Well, you told me you left the entire state of North Carolina to get away from her, so I’m thinking there might be a little to tell.” Hannah held her thumb and forefinger very close together.
“Well. To get away from her and a lot of other people.”
Hannah propped her head on her hand, elbow on the bar, and waited.
“God, you’re relentless,” Kelsey muttered. “Fine.” She took a sip of wine. “Janice and I were together for five years. She’s older than me by eight years, so most of our friends were her friends first. She was pretty well into her career as a bank manager. I was twenty-five with a business degree, and I was working for a shop similar to mine, but part of a big chain. I was moving up, but hating the politics of it.”
Hannah nodded for her to continue.
“So, about three and a half years in, I start to feel a bit of distance between us. She’s working later, going to ‘work functions.’” Kelsey made air quotes. “We’re not talking like we used to. We’re spending less and less time together.”
“Uh oh.” Hannah grimaced. “Affair?”
“That’s what I thought at first. All the signs were
there.” Kelsey recalled how she felt during that time...sad, alone, out-of-the-loop, and most of all, stupid. “I started paying more attention, asked her if everything was okay. She always laughed it off, made me feel like I was being some neurotic worrier. Finally, I got tired of wondering.”
“Tell me you followed her. Please tell me you followed her.”
Kelsey blushed a tiny bit, but Hannah’s obvious excitement kept the shame at bay. “I followed her.”
“Yes!” Hannah gave a fist pump. “I have this vision of you, all Olivia Benson-like, slinking down in the driver’s seat of your car as you sit on a stakeout.”
“Trust me,” Kelsey said with a chuckle. “It was far less glamorous.”
“Was it an affair?”
“No. It was a night class.”
“What?” Hannah’s brow furrowed. “A night class?”
Kelsey gave a slow nod and took a sip of her wine. She set the glass back down, spun it slowly by the stem. “She was taking classes to help with a promotion the bank had offered her. In Asheville.”
Hannah blinked at her. “So, wait. She was taking night classes she didn’t tell you about so that she could take a promotion she didn’t tell you about in a city you didn’t live in? And that she didn’t tell you about?”
“Exactly.”
“WTF?”
“Exactly.” Kelsey finished off her wine, signaled for another.
“Wow. That’s cold.”
“We had talked about moving to Asheville down the line. I never expected her to just...go without me. To this day, I’m not a hundred percent sure what happened, but I suspect there was somebody else. Somebody she met at work. I’ve checked her Facebook page and she’s been ‘in a relationship’ with some chick since about a week after she moved there, so...”
“Wow,” Hannah said again. “I’m sorry, Kels.”
“Thanks. It was hard because our friends were her friends first, so I lost most of them in the split. That’s when I decided to get away. Far away.”
Hannah raised her glass. “To far away.” Kelsey touched hers to it and they sipped. Hannah looked at her intently for several moments before saying softly, “That sucks.”
“It did. But it’s over. I’m past it. I’m just kind of sensitive to secrets now, you know?”
“I bet you are. I totally get it.”
“Anyway.” Kelsey shrugged. “That’s my story. Sad but true.”
“For what it’s worth, I think your ex is an idiot.” Hannah smiled tenderly at her.
“So do I.”
They clinked glasses again and Kelsey actually found herself feeling a little bit lighter. She hadn’t told anybody that story since she moved. Since before she moved, really. The truth of the matter was, she’d abandoned a lot of her old friends when she’d moved in with Janice, so when they split, Kelsey found herself alone in more ways than one. This move had been a big deal for her. A huge deal. And it wasn’t easy. Moving away from her family, from everything she was familiar with, so that she could start all over again at thirty-one was stressful. It was frightening. It was hard. But she’d done it and for that, she was proud of herself.
She could only pray that Betsy Siegler wasn’t about to take it all away.
CHAPTER THREE
IT HAD BEEN NEARLY a week since the bomb-dropping visit of Betsy Siegler to Common Scents, and Kelsey could feel herself relaxing even as she tried not to let her guard down. There was no way somebody as singularly focused as Mrs. Siegler would warn Kelsey she’d be contacted by her lawyer and then just disappear, never to be heard from again. The world was not that kind. Kelsey was pretty certain of it.
Still. Every day that went by with no phone call, no visit from a slick-looking guy in an Armani suit, no reminder of what had happened the previous Saturday, saw Kelsey’s stress levels reducing, saw her breathing just a tiny bit easier, despite her own internal promise to be ready at all costs.
Jeremy had things under control at the shop—Thursday nights weren’t historically busy—so Kelsey had headed home and found herself in her small but charming apartment by six, which was nearly unheard of.
After enjoying a leisurely dinner of eggs over easy, bacon, and toast, she collapsed onto her well-used couch, pulled out her laptop, and surfed Netflix to decide on something to watch. It wasn’t often she had free time like this, and she knew she should probably do a little cleaning, but the idea of vegging on her couch with a glass of wine and a cheesy horror movie was way more appealing than scrubbing the toilet or dusting her dresser.
She was twenty minutes into You’re Next when her phone buzzed, signaling an incoming text. A glance told her it was her cousin Chris, and Kelsey gave a little squeal of delight.
You up for some FT? the text read.
Kelsey didn’t even respond. She simply hit the FaceTime icon on her laptop, and in a few seconds she could see Chris’s smiling face filling her screen.
“Well, hello there, favorite cousin of mine,” Chris said with her usual lopsided grin.
“Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes. Hi.”
Chris’s mom and Kelsey’s mom were very tight sisters. When they had babies less than a year apart, it only stood to reason that they’d be tight as well. Chris was older—a fact she liked to hold over Kelsey’s head often when they were growing up—but they’d always been incredibly close. They’d attended the same college. They spoke at least once a week, if not more often. They could read each other like books. When something was bothering Kelsey, Chris always knew, sometimes simply by looking at her cousin’s face.
“What’s going on, Kelderama?” Chris asked, the squinting of her brown eyes visible on the screen as she used one of the umpteen childhood nicknames Kelsey couldn’t seem to shake. “You’ve got the Worry Divot going in a big way.” She indicated the spot above her own nose where Kelsey always got a crease from scowling with worry.
Neither of them had siblings, so they filled that role for each other, acting more like sisters than cousins. They also enjoyed using the fact that they were both gay as a way to endlessly tease their mothers, blaming their genes and letting their fathers off the hook.
“First, tell me how Boston is.” Chris had moved there from Charlotte about six months before Kelsey had moved to Westland, to take a job at an international marketing firm.
“It’s okay. It’s a really cool city. Lots to do and see.”
“That should sound great, but your tone is unconvincing.”
Chris made a sound of frustration and tucked some of her sandy hair behind an ear. “I know. It’s just...I’m working so much. Which isn’t a surprise. I mean, they told me during my interview that it’d be a bitch of a first year, but...” Her voice trailed off and her eyes looked away from the camera.
“You don’t have any time to meet people.” Kelsey understood completely, despite the difference in their jobs.
“Yes! That’s exactly it. I work a seventy- or eighty-hour week and then all I want to do when I’m not in the office is sleep. I’ve got, like, zero extra time. As you can see,” she held her phone farther from her face to reveal the background: an office. “I’m still at work.”
“You’re an hour ahead of me,” Kelsey said with a glance at the clock. “It’s after eight there. Go home.”
“It’s only five thirty on the west coast.”
Kelsey grimaced. “I’m sorry, Chrissy. I know what you’re going through. I mean, my hours aren’t as brutal as yours—”
“And you’re the boss,” Chris interjected.
“And I’m the boss. But I know exactly what you’re going through. Meeting people is tough, especially if your time is limited.”
“You’ve done a commendable job, if your Instagram is any indication. Are you and Hannah official yet?” Chris waggled her eyebrows in a ridiculous gesture that made Kelsey laugh.
“No, we’re not, and we won’t ever be. I told you, she’s sweet, and I like her a lot, but it’s not there for me.”
“S
till? I mean, she’s seriously cute.”
“You think so? Well, fly out here and I’ll introduce you.”
“I just might do that.”
“Promises, promises,” Kelsey said with a snort.
“So talk to me. What’s going on that has you looking so stressed?”
Kelsey took a deep breath and launched into the entire story of Betsy Siegler, her mother, and her threats, ending with how she hadn’t heard anything since, and it was freaking her out a little bit because her heart wanted to pretend nothing was going to happen and everything was fine, even though she knew better.
“Maybe you’re overthinking it,” Chris offered with a shrug. “Maybe it will be fine.”
Kelsey fiddled with the ring on her left forefinger, spinning it with her other hand in a nervous gesture. “I suppose anything is possible. But I just don’t see Betsy Siegler as a woman who’s going to raise my rent by twenty bucks. More likely, it’ll be a few hundred. Or more. It’s an up-and-coming area, and property values are going no place but up.”
“Have you talked to your dad?” Chris asked the question quietly, obviously knowing how it would make Kelsey bristle.
“No.”
“Maybe you should?” When Kelsey looked away, Chris went on. “He’s a good businessman, Kels. He knows his stuff.”
“Yeah, he also told me opening my shop was...let me think. How did he say it?” She rubbed her chin in a gesture of thinking, but she didn’t need to. She remembered exactly how he’d said it. “Oh, right. ‘Short-sighted, wishful thinking.’ That’s how he viewed my hopes for success.”
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