He shrugged. “He’s a good-looking guy. I’ll give him that.”
I grinned. “Jealous?”
“Jealous?” He burst into laughter. “I don’t do relationships, which means I never have a reason for jealousy. Just making an observation.”
Studying him, I decided he was telling the truth. “No, I don’t want to talk about the text. I thought it might pertain to poor Mr. Frey, but I was wrong.”
“It was from your past. The secret you don’t want to get out.”
Maybe it was the whiskey, or maybe it was just the stress of the day, but I was starting to get pissed. “You must have short-term memory loss, because if I remember correctly—and I do—we just toasted to leaving our secrets in the past.”
“True enough, but it’s always good to know how many people know about your secrets. How many, Mags?”
I took a long gulp of whiskey, then leaned back into the cushions, closing my eyes as I cradled the glass to my chest. “One. And I plan to keep it that way.” Time to change the subject. I sat up a little bit. “How long was your set at the Embassy? And how’d you have time to rent this apartment?”
“My set was an hour. I found out about the apartment earlier tonight. Like I said, I’d planned on telling you tomorrow.”
“And the whiskey?”
He sat back, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “I’ve had it in my truck. I was supposed to meet a couple of buddies later, but after you called tonight, I canceled.”
“Why would you cancel your plans?”
“Because you need a friend tonight. And I wanted to give you something good in a day full of shit. So chill with the third degree.”
I turned my head to study him. He was closer than I would have liked, but I didn’t think he was trying to hit on me. The look on his face told me that he really was here as a friend. “I’m not sleeping with you,” I said, just in case.
“News flash, Magnolia Steele, internet porn star—I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“I’m not a porn star.”
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a grin. “But I still don’t want to sleep with you.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted that notorious man-whore, Colt Austin, didn’t want to have a go at me.
“Tell me about the detective,” Colt said, looking down at his glass and then back up at me. “That was some pretty intense chemistry for two people who’d just met over a dead body.”
I cringed. “That’s disgusting.”
“Which makes it all the more unlikely.”
I took another sip of liquid courage. “That’s because we met three weeks ago.”
“He was the detective trying to pin those murders on you?” he asked in disbelief.
I found myself telling him more than I’d intended, from how Brady and I had met to how he’d betrayed me by sharing stuff we’d talked about in private with his partner.
“Jesus. I hope you kicked him in the balls.”
Scowling, I took another drink.
His mouth dropped. “You didn’t?” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head in disgust. “I never pegged you for one of those women.”
I sat up and set my glass down on the coffee table with a thud. “What women?”
“Women who let men treat them like shit and go back for more.”
I turned to face him, my anger rising. “I didn’t. The day I was planning to go back to New York, I ran into him downtown, and he apologized. Said he was only trying to protect me but he’d like to start over.” It wasn’t exactly verbatim, but it was close enough. “I pretty much told him to go to hell.”
He gave a slight nod of approval. “So just bad freakin’ luck that he was assigned to the guy behind the bar tonight?”
“Yeah.” I was already piling up the lies and secrets with him; what was one more?
“You like him.”
“He used me.”
“Yet you like him anyway. You already told me so on the phone. You went to that restaurant with him.”
“Well, he doesn’t like me anymore.” I gave him a begrudging grin. “Your Netflix and chill comment stopped him in his tracks.”
Colt’s face beamed with pride. “You’re welcome.” His smile fell. “On a scale of one to ten, how badly do you want your secret to stay in the past?”
I looked into my nearly empty glass. “I think you know the answer to that. A ten.”
“Then you can’t date him. You know that, right? He’ll start diggin’—he can’t help himself; he’s a detective—and then he’ll unbury your secrets.”
“Yeah.” I sighed and sat back, sinking into the cushions. “I know.”
We were silent for half a minute before he refilled both of our glasses and then said, “I cared about someone once.”
I glanced at him in surprise. He’d told me he’d never been in love and hinted that he’d never even come close.
He handed my glass to me, then sat back next to me and stared up at the ceiling. “It was a few years ago. I was bartending in Nashville. She was a waitress.” He turned his head to face me, and a woeful smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. “She made me break my five-date rule.”
“Your five-date rule? If they don’t put out by date number five, you break up with them?”
“No,” he said in disgust. “I get laid long before date number five. What, are you crazy?”
“Wow,” I murmured. “Such a gentleman.”
“The difference between me and Detective Brady Bennett is that I never pretended to be a gentleman.”
That stung more than I would have liked, but I had to admit he had a point. “Go ahead, enlighten me about your rule.”
“I make sure there never is a fifth date.” He returned his attention to the ceiling.
It occurred to me there was more to Colt’s motivation to be a man-slut than I’d suspected. He was hiding in plain sight. He kept the people he dated at a distance to avoid revealing himself to them.
Wasn’t that exactly what I had done in the past? Sure, Colt had undoubtedly slept with a lot more women than I’d slept with men, but maybe we weren’t so different. “So you dated her more than five times?”
He gave me a bitter smile. “Oh, yeah . . .”
“What happened?”
“She found out my secret.”
“And she left you?” I asked in disbelief. “What a bitch.”
His eyes were full of emotion—anger, regret, and something I couldn’t identify—when they snapped to mine. “She’s not a bitch. She’s a good woman.”
“If she loved you, she wouldn’t have thrown you away just like that.”
“Detective Brady sold you up shit creek without a paddle, Mags, so don’t go throwing stones.”
“First of all, he’s not in love with me. And I don’t excuse him for what he did. Well, I understand why he did it, even if I don’t like it.”
He took a big gulp of his whiskey, then let out a loud sigh. “We’re like two peas in a pod, you and I.”
“So what’s your big secret?” I asked, starting to feel a buzz. “What scared her away?”
His eyes darkened. “Some things really are better left in the past, Maggie. You want to share your secret first?”
“No.” Most definitely not.
Chapter 8
My first two observations as I blinked my eyes open were that my mouth felt like cotton and I had a crick in my neck. The pale sunlight shining through a window in the kitchen indicated it was early morning.
I sat upright on the sofa, my head pounding and nausea clutching my stomach.
Colt was next to me, his feet up on the coffee table.
What had I done?
I looked down at my body, relieved to see all my clothes were still on, with the exception of my shoes. Colt was still dressed too.
He stirred, his feet knocking over the half-empty whiskey bottle. “Shit,” he muttered, sliding upright.
The clink of the glass on the w
ood shot an arrow of pain straight through my head. I pressed my palm into the side of my head. “You suck, Colt Austin.”
“Me? What the hell did I do?”
“You made me drink all that whiskey.”
“I did no such thing.” He ran a hand over his face, then cupped his hand over his mouth and shuddered. “Jesus. My breath smells like Taco Bell farts.”
“What the hell is your obsession with Taco Bell?” I asked, getting pissed, which only made my head hurt worse.
“Who doesn’t like Taco Bell when they’re drinkin’?”
“Me! I don’t like it when I’m drinking! I don’t like it at all!” I said, getting to my feet. “And this most certainly is your fault. You kept refilling my glass.”
“Well, you didn’t have to keep drinkin’ it.”
I ran my hands through my hair, pressing them against the sides of my head. “I’m supposed to start my new job today. How’s it going to look when I show up with a hangover?”
“So chase some aspirin with plenty of water and coffee, take a shower, and you’ll be good as new. If I avoided social interaction every time I had a hangover, I’d be a hermit.”
Why was I not surprised? “Good to know,” I said, digging my phone out of my pocket. “Oh crap. It’s six fifteen. My mother is probably already up.”
“So?”
“So! I have her car. She’s going to want to know where I went.” Did I need to cop to my meeting with Walter Frey? Was there any way to keep it from her? Doubtful.
“I doubt the first thing Lila does when she wakes up in the morning is peer out her bedroom window to make sure her car is still in the driveway. And you’re a grown-ass woman,” he said, groaning as he stood. “Don’t tell me you have a curfew.”
“She’s going to want to know where I was. She’ll never approve of this.” I gestured between us. “And she sure wouldn’t understand.”
He grinned. “Obviously, because I’m too good for you.”
I stumbled into the kitchen and pulled a glass out of the cabinet.
“I forgot you don’t have a car.” He sounded more serious this time.
I pressed the ice dispenser on the refrigerator door and cringed as ice clinked into the glass. “Actually, I do have one. It’s currently inoperable.”
He waited for me to continue.
Filling the glass with water, I shot him a quick glance. “Apparently my mother still has the car I used to drive in high school. She stored it in the garage.”
That perked him up. “You’re kidding.”
I still wasn’t sure what to make of that. Had she held on to it expecting that I’d eventually come home? That I’d ask for it one day? Whatever the reason, she’d stored the vehicle in the garage, but now it was surrounded by a bunch of Roy’s junk and boxes of files. “It won’t start. As far as I know, it hasn’t been driven for ten years.”
“Why haven’t you fixed it?”
I took a long drink of the water, which felt good on my parched mouth. “I don’t exactly have the money to fix it.”
“It’s probably just a battery. Surely you can afford that.”
“I suppose I can after I get paid on Friday.”
He shook his head. “How can someone who’s been all over the internet be so destitute?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
He pushed out a loud sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “What’s your schedule like today?”
I gave him a suspicious look. “I’m working at Rebellious Rose Boutique this morning, but I’m not sure for how long. Then I’m helping Momma and Tilly prepare for the cocktail party tonight.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m tending bar.” He scrubbed his face, and his eyes looked a little more alert when he dropped his hand. “I have the code to your momma’s garage. I’ll ask Lila if I can go take a look at the car before I’m due to show up at the catering office.”
My mouth dropped open. “You have a code to the house?”
He shrugged and took the water glass from my hand. “Yeah. But just the garage. If Lila wants me to go inside, she leaves the door to the kitchen unlocked.”
“She doesn’t give that out to just anyone, Colt.”
He looked me in the eyes. “Then maybe you should take a cue from your momma and trust me a little more.” He took a long drink, draining the glass, then handing it back to me. “I’ll text you later.”
“Wait,” I said as he walked toward the door. “Where are you going?”
Laughing, he opened the door, his back still to me. “Just because we slept together doesn’t mean you get to know every detail about my life. Don’t be so clingy, Maggie.”
“We did not sleep together!” I shouted, sending a stabbing pain through my head.
“Miss Ava’s a morning person, so you should probably stop by to find out when she wants you to clean. But it’s more likely she’ll stop you on the way out.”
The door closed behind him before I could ask him for more details. Just like a man.
But it was kind of nice to be alone in the apartment for the first time. It was small—you could fit the entire space into a bigger living room—but it was clean and cozy, and it had enough character to make it interesting. More importantly, it felt like home. Nowhere had ever felt that way since I’d left from Franklin. Sure, I’d spent the past few weeks in my childhood bedroom, but it wasn’t the same as an adult. I felt like a guest.
I put the glass in the sink and grabbed my car keys and the keys to the apartment off the island. Moving in wouldn’t be hard. I only had two suitcases. But how would Momma take the news? And what would I do if I couldn’t get my car running? This place was only a few blocks from downtown, so I could walk to my jobs. The grocery store was another story. I remembered Franklin having a trolley system, but I had no idea where it stopped or when.
I locked the door behind me and headed down the stairs. I had just made it to the bottom when a woman called out to me from the house. “So you’re Magnolia.”
The sun had started to rise, which sure didn’t help my pounding head. I squinted to find her. “Yes, ma’am.”
The woman laughed and stepped out the back door of the house. I’d expected someone older, but she had the unmistakable air of Southern gentility. “And you have good manners. But then, Lila Steele is your mother, is she not?”
I moved closer warily, feeling like I’d been caught doing something untoward. I wished Colt had stuck around to introduce us. “Yes, ma’am, she is.”
“I’m Ava Milton. Colton tells me you’re working for your mother, but you need reduced rent because she’s not paying you much.”
“Um . . .” It wasn’t Momma’s fault, actually—she’d given me $5,000 a few weeks ago, back when she’d thought I might leave town for good, but it had mostly gone toward paying my credit card bills. “I also work at Rebellious Rose Boutique, but a break on the rent would be helpful. Thank you.”
“Have you ever cleaned houses before, Magnolia?” she asked, her tone now brisk and superior.
I was suddenly questioning this decision. I hated cleaning, but I wanted that apartment. And not just because my mother was getting on my last nerve. “Yes, ma’am. My mother is quite the taskmaster when it comes to cleaning her house.”
She nodded, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Good. Too many young people don’t know the first thing about cleaning.” She opened the door wider. “Come on in. We can discuss your schedule and the lease agreement.”
I resisted the urge to check my phone. If I wanted this to work out, I couldn’t just leave, no matter how late it was getting.
As I got closer, I realized Ava Milton was a fair bit older than she looked from twenty feet away. I would guess her to be in her late sixties, but her face was so smooth it was hard to tell.
I followed her inside the house, and she showed me where she stored her cleaning supplies. “I have a Bible study every Thursday morning,” she said, standing in the closet doorway. “Can you clean on Wednesdays?�
��
“I’m sure I can work it out.”
She arched her tiny, over-tweezed eyebrows. “Either you can or you cannot; which is it, Magnolia?”
I couldn’t help startling at her tone. “Yes, ma’am. I can do it.”
She gave me a sharp nod. “Very good. Then let me show you the house.”
The house was bigger than I’d expected and also more dated. Ava had vintage furniture and antiques, most of which looked dainty and fragile. Given her request for a female tenant, I suspected there was no Mr. Milton and that she rarely entertained men.
“How do you clean hardwood floors, Magnolia?” she asked in a superior tone that told me she had a preferred answer, even if she’d likely never cleaned a floor in her life.
“Vinegar water, of course,” I said, trying not to sound smug. Of course, it could be argued that the knowledge of how to mop hardwood without leaving streaks was nothing to feel smug about.
If the cast from Fireflies at Dawn could see me now . . .
I gave myself a mental shake. Ava had moved on.
“I prefer a ratio of one gallon water to two tablespoons of vinegar,” she said. “I know some people try to skimp on the vinegar because of the smell, but if you add a bit of—”
“Lemon juice,” I said. “But in the winter, Momma always added pine oil.”
“I’m sure she did,” she said in a snotty tone. “But in my house, you will use lemon juice.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She gave me a grudging nod of approval. “This might work out after all.”
She led me to the kitchen and showed me a form on her kitchen table. “The contract says you’ll clean on Wednesdays and pay the rent on the first of the month.” Then she gave me a long list of rules, starting with no parking on the street. Her pinched look might as well have screamed, “first warning,” since my momma’s car sat in front of her house, bold as brass. The rest of the rules were about what I’d expected. No loud parties. No loud anything. No parties at all. She was looking for a quiet tenant who kept to herself.
“Colton told me this morning that you were accepting the apartment,” she said with a disapproving glare. “So I know he spent the night.” She folded her hands and took a deep breath before continuing. “I realize times have changed from when I was a young woman, so I know it’s unrealistic to expect you not to entertain male suitors, but I would prefer for you not to bring home a variety of different men.” She lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t want my neighbors to think I’m running a brothel.”
Act Two Page 8