Ben stared thoughtfully at the cigarette for a few seconds before lighting up. “This is horrible stakeout planning,” he said dejectedly, exhaling a stream of smoke out the window.
“You need to quit anyway. That is a horrible habit.”
He snorted, shooting smoke from his nose. “My mama didn’t raise no quitters.”
Evy exhaled a long breath, wishing she would have had time to shower and put on some fresh clothes. She picked at the chocolate stain on her leggings with her nail. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hang on a second,” Ben said, squinting out the front windshield. “I wanna see what’s going on.”
Evy twisted in her seat and glanced out the rear window. “What if he sees us?”
“Clay?” Ben shook his head. “He looks pretty wrapped up to me.”
Evy turned back around, watching Dean shake hands with the gray haired man. “No, I mean the bald guy, Ryder.”
Ben shushed her and checked his mirrors, slinking down in his seat. “Don’t say his name out loud; you’ll summon him.”
***
Dean’s heart pounded in his chest, a pebble of doom snowballing into a boulder inside of him as he walked up the driveway. The smile stretching Clay’s tanned cheeks gave him a serious case of the jitters. He looked away and surveyed the well manicured yard as Clay stepped forward and extended a hand.
“Congratulations!” Clay smiled, shaking Dean’s hand with an enthusiastic grip. “Hope you’re feeling better.”
Dean ignored him, his gaze coming to a skidding stop on the lady wearing a black blazer and teal colored high heels.
“Why are we here, Daddy?” Megan asked, scanning the house through puzzled eyes.
Clay nodded to the woman standing next to him and adjusted his suit coat. “This is Carla with Century 21.”
Megan and Dean stared at Carla, befuddlement strangling their features.
“Nice to meet you both,” she smiled warmly, shaking their hands, her soft blond curls bouncing lightly with the breeze.
Clay looked over his shoulder to the red front door behind him. “Care to take a look?”
The color oozed from Dean’s face like dark clouds had rolled in above, stealing his life-force with measured resolve. “I don’t understand.”
Clay winked at him. “Well, it’s not the Taj Mahal, Deano, but it’s a nice little starter pad. And wait till you see the nursery,” he said, gesturing for them to follow him inside. “It’s perfect!”
***
Evy watched the house swallow Dean whole, her nerves frayed like an old sweater. “I don’t like this.”
Ben swung his nervous gaze around the suburban neighborhood. “I hope we do see that bald prick. He and I have a score to settle.”
“Ben,” Evy whispered.
He opened his mouth to argue but closed it instead.
“Just relax, we got the liquor license back. There’s no sense in screwing it up again.” She craned her neck to detect any movement around the house. It was quiet. The leaves of a nearby oak tree rustled with a breeze pushing through the truck’s cab. Four kids sped down the sidewalk on different colored BMX bikes, pedaling like someone was after them.
“So what do we do now?”
Ben shrugged and ran a hand across his buzzed hair. “Not sure, this is only my second stakeout.”
She screwed her face up and slowly turned to him. “When was the first?”
“Long time ago, when I started dating Brooke.”
She watched him drum his fingers on the steering wheel, one after the other. “You followed her?”
“Thought she was seeing someone else,” he smiled, keeping an eye on the house and the rearview mirror. “We weren’t exactly…exclusive at the time, but I wanted to be.”
“So you followed her like some kind of sick stalker?”
Ben turned to her with a deep seeded frown and gestured to the house. “What do you call this?”
“I call this your idea!”
Ben turned back to the house and softly laughed. “Well, it was either this or another Costco run.”
Evy folded her arms across a purple t-shirt with a bedazzled pocket that reflected sun spots onto the dash. They grew quiet, soaking up the neighborhood like thirsty sponges, jerking their heads toward anything that moved. A rabbit hopped from one side of the street to the other, disappearing into some bushes. A mail truck sputtered past, stopping at each mailbox dotting the domesticated street, filling them with what, for the most part, amounted to garbage in a digital age.
“So was she?”
Ben turned to Evy and didn’t respond.
“Seeing someone else?”
He grunted and tilted his head from side to side, making his neck crack. “Turned out she was taking pole dancing classes.”
Evy stifled a laugh. “Oh my God, I totally remember that. She tried to get me to go with her.”
“She was going to surprise me with my own private lap dance on my birthday and I ruined the whole thing.”
This time her laughter escaped and it felt good. “That’s right!”
“Your sister has always had some weird secret desire to be a stripper. Every time we go to a strip club she spends half the time judging the dancers like it’s American Idol.”
“God, you two are weird.”
Ben’s brow folded. “What?”
“Who takes their wife to a strip bar?”
“Well, what’s wrong with that? Gotta get in the mood somehow.”
Evy held up a hand. “Okay, I get it.”
He stared dreamily out the windshield. “She would’ve made a great stripper with that rack of hers.” Ben turned to judge Evy’s reaction, hoping to get a rise out of her.
Evy rolled her eyes, bringing a smile to Ben’s unshaven face. “Good to know, Ben.”
“I mean, I’d pay good money to motorboat those things.”
“Well, I think we’ve seen enough here for one day.”
“Hey don’t sell yourself short, Evy, you’ve got a great rack, too. Runs in the family. I mean, your mom’s rack is even…”
“Can we go?” she cut him off, glancing at her large faced watch. “I told Brooke I’d be there by now.”
“Not just yet.” Ben let out a wistful sigh, staring out the front window through distant eyes. “Truth be told, I would’ve followed your sister to the ends of the earth. That girl hooked me right out of the gate.”
Evy turned to him and paused, studying his profile. “Was it love at first sight?”
Ben slowly rotated his head to her. “It was. How about with you and Dean?”
She shrugged. “Maybe second sight.”
A light laugh rolled from his lips. “Ya know, a lot of people don’t believe in that kind of stuff. They think it’s impossible to fall for someone that fast because it hasn’t happened to them yet.”
She responded with a distant nod, remembering the first time she had laid eyes on Dean Jacobs. The patio at Panera had been sunny that day, with a busy after church crowd. Dean had been tall, dark, and handsome but, despite that, she had managed to listen to her gut and blow him off. She could still see the hurt look on his face and smiled when she saw him spill that lady’s drink. Sitting here now, she wondered if – knowing what she knew – she would end up being such a pushover no matter how many times fate had brought them together. Her eyes returned to the house. Her throat moved dryly, knowing the answer would always be yes.
Ben checked his empty pack of smokes again and then crumpled the box in his hand. “You ready to go?” he asked, starting the truck.
She hit him with a tightlipped smile. “Oh, now you’re ready to go?”
“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what’s going on here.”
Evy followed his discerning gaze back to the olive-colored house with Dean inside, the for sale sign poking out of the green grass like a western tombstone. Her insides coiled around her lungs. “Me too,” she mumbled bleakly, fastening her seat belt.
&nb
sp; “Sex ring.”
She frowned and swung her gaze over to Ben.
He shifted into drive and gave it some gas. “Don’t you watch Discovery? There’s some sick shit going on out there, Ev,” he said, turning around in the driveway of the house with the sprinkler.
“Ew, that’s her father.”
Ben shrugged without taking his eyes from the road. “Like I said, sick shit.”
“You watch too much TV,” she said, throttling the image of Dean rolling around in a big bed with Megan and the lady with the clipboard.
***
When Evy pushed through the front door, it rang in her ears like a church bell, disrupting the jazzy tune serenading a nearly empty Sugars. Brooke looked up from the register, handing a receipt to two younger girls with matching high school sweaters.
“How was the stakeout, stalker?”
“It wasn’t a stakeout,” Evy replied, crossing the checkered floor with Ben behind her.
“But you admit you’re a stalker?”
Evy shook her head, ignoring the looks from the two girls at the counter.
“Gotta watch out for the ones who like to follow people around town. They’re always the craziest,” Brooke said, sticking her tongue out at Ben when Evy wasn’t looking.
Evy surveyed the lonely tables and chairs, guilt swelling inside. A half moon booth, Ben had dubbed the Tony Soprano booth, sat lonely in the corner, looking much smaller without well dressed people lining its cushions. Even with the liquor license back, it had been a slow week. Too slow. She lifted a trap door in the counter and passed through, knowing she needed to be focusing on attracting - and keeping - customers, not some reckless summer fling. Email blasts and Facebook posts should be eating up her spare time, not stakeouts and Netflix marathons.
“Why has it been so slow?”
Brooke looked around the quiet eatery and exhaled a forlorn breath as the two girls left with their drinks out the front door. “I don’t know. Guess the shine has worn off.”
“Don’t say that,” Evy said, pushing through the swinging door and going into the kitchen.
Brooke followed her into the office, chocolate and mint mixing in the air. “That’s how business goes, Evy, it’s up and down.”
“Well, we need more up.” Evy dropped her purse into a chair and slipped out of her purple t-shirt. “We can barely afford to pay Shaun part-time wages.”
“Actually, we can’t.”
Evy looked up. “What do you mean?”
Brooke folded her arms across her black Sugars shirt and leaned in the doorframe, a long breath easing from her lips. “I mean, if business doesn’t pick up we’re going to have to let him go.”
Evy squeezed her eyes shut until she saw stars. “Shit.”
“Things could turn around any minute though,” Brooke said hopefully, watching Evy take a folded black t-shirt from a pile of others inside a tall metal cabinet. “So what happened on the stakeout?”
Evy threaded her hands through the sleeves and lifted the shirt over her head.
“See?” Ben yelled from the kitchen, peering through the office window. “Nice racks run in the family!”
“Ben,” Brooke groaned as Evy yanked the shirt over her head in a frenzied blur. “Don’t be a pervert! She’s your sister-in-law.”
Ben laughed to himself and disappeared into a walk-in cooler.
“So where’d they go?”
Evy pulled her hair back into a ponytail and narrowed her gaze.
“On the stakeout?”
Evy pushed past her nosey sister and entered the kitchen as Ben came back out of the cooler with the reject tub cradled against his chest. He set it on the island table and fished out a chocolate cupcake with frosting hanging too far on one side like a Misfit Toy.
“Clay is pushing them to buy a house,” Evy said, glancing up front where the empty tables and chairs sat in direct contrast to the glass cases stuffed with tiramisu cupcakes, Chocolate Indulgence cookies, and Sugars’ exclusive Slutty Brownies. She released a pent-up breath and joined Brooke and Ben at the work space.
“What?” Brooke gasped.
Ben sunk his teeth into the cupcake and spoke with his mouth full. “They were definitely house hunting.”
Brooke shook her head like she had just been bitch-slapped. “Wait a minute, not more than two hours ago you told me they were getting a divorce. Now they’re going house hunting?”
“There was a realtor and everything,” Evy said, checking her phone again.
“It was pretty weird,” Ben added, popping back into the same cooler and coming back out with half a gallon of chocolate milk. “They definitely haven’t had the chance to tell Clay anything yet.” He twisted the cap off and took a long chug, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. “Trust me, they won’t be house shopping for long. She’ll tell him.”
Brooke brushed a loose lock of hair behind her ear and lowered her voice. “Try not to worry too much. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve got a good feeling in my gut and my gut is never wrong. It’s the Burnett intuition.”
Evy forced a smile just to get her to stop. “I know.”
“This Megan bitch is about to be history.”
“Not if she’s pregnant with his child. She’ll always be in the picture.”
Brooke and Evy slowly turned to Ben with matching looks of contempt. He quickly looked away and took a swig from the plastic container of milk.
“Get a glass, Dear Abby,” Brooke admonished, turning back to Evy. “Don’t listen to anything he says. He was dropped on his head as a child.”
Ben wiped frosting from his nose with the back of his wrist, smearing chocolate across a green dragon’s tail that had been one of his first tattoos. “I’m sorry, Ev.”
“No, you’re right. If this all works out, by some miracle, I have to start preparing myself for a lifetime of Megan. I’ll have to play mom every other weekend and I don’t know if I’m ready for that. I don’t even have a cat. I want one, but I’m just not sure I’m ready yet.”
“Cat’s steal your breath while you’re sleeping. Get a dog.”
Brooke shot Ben a heated glare. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, sweetie,” she said, taking Evy’s hand. “Let’s just take this one day at a time for right now and see where it goes.”
“She doesn’t look pregnant though,” Evy muttered, staring off into space.
“She really doesn’t,” Ben quickly added, trying to redeem himself.
“Evy,” Brooke said softly, “she’s not far enough along to be showing yet.”
“Or she’s a pathological liar who’s not really pregnant at all,” Ben threw in for good measure.
Evy blinked back to reality. “I think I’ll take door number two.”
“Megan’s on your side now,” Ben said, digging out a huge chocolate chip cookie with a crack splintered down the middle.
Evy sent a sharp laugh ricocheting off the yellow walls. “So she says.”
“I don’t care what she says, you don’t trust that skank for one single minute,” Brooke said.
“Oh trust me, I don’t. I mean, why the change of heart to do the right thing all of the sudden?”
Ben shrugged, chewing on the cookie. “Sounds like she had a comin to Jesus party in Hawaii.”
This time Brooke was the one to laugh.
Evy grabbed an apron from a nearby coat rack and threw it on. “Why do I always end up dating the most screwed up guys?”
Brooke stared at her with a deadpan expression covering her face. “You’ve dated like two guys.”
“What about Mark?”
Ben frowned. “Who’s Mark?”
“A guy Evy dated for like two weeks.”
“Three weeks,” Evy corrected, tying her apron in the back.
Brooke squeezed her eyes together. “What was wrong with that guy again?”
“He littered.”
Ben laughed and started coughing. “What do you mean?”
“
McDonald’s bags, water bottles, whatever garbage was in the car went right out the window wherever we went. And it was like he didn’t even know he was doing it either. He’d be telling me a story about his grandfather tipping over on a riding mower as he was throwing a Gatorade bottle out the window.”
“And yet you still slept with him.”
“Ew, I did not!”
“That is a horrible story,” Ben said.
“I know! It was so embarrassing.”
“No, I mean about his grandpa rolling over on a mower. That’s no way to go.”
Evy stared blankly at him for a few seconds. “We should order a pizza soon; I think I’m actually hungry,” she said, pushing through the swinging door.
Ben winked at his wife. “She’ll be fine. She just needs to get laid.”
“I heard that,” Evy yelled from the vicinity of the coffee makers.
Brooke came around the table and ran a hand along the inside of Ben’s thigh. “And she’s not the only one. All this excitement has got me all aflutter.”
Ben shifted on his stool, trying to free the growing boner pointing down the inside of his pant leg. “Aflutter? That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not,” she whispered, batting her long lashes and slowly unzipping Ben’s jeans.
Ben’s breathing turned heavy.
Brooke reached inside his jeans and came back out with a handful. Her eyes dipped beneath the table and lit up. “Oooh, someone’s excited to see me.”
“He likes you. Talks about you all the time.”
“Is that right?” Brooke said in a sultry voice, stroking him stiff as a board. “What’s he say?”
“Says you got a purty mouth.”
“Oh my, such adulation. Does he want me to put him inside my mouth?”
Ben gripped the edge of the table with both hands, a vein throbbing in his neck as her hand worked faster. “Is that today’s special?”
Brooke slowly nodded, her tongue sweeping across her lips. “Sure is, sugar.”
“Oh my God!”
Brooke and Ben whipped their heads around to see Evy staring at them over the top of the swinging door, repulsion gripping her face. Ben huddled closer to the table and whistled like nothing was going on.
Brooke pulled her hand back and pretended to straighten her apron. “I thought you were helping customers.”
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