by Lena North
“Thanks,” I said to Dad, but turned my head and extended my gratitude to Joel, Al, Wee, Silenus and pretty much everyone else. “Who wants a free shot!?” I squealed.
“Kitty,” Dad muttered. “For Christ’s sake. Don’t spend your whole reward on drinks.”
I told him the size of my reward.
Then we had shots, and when Dad had picked his jaw up from the bar and gotten an ice pack from Silenus, he had one too.
“Only you, Kitty,” he muttered. “Guess you’ll move out again.”
“That guess would be accurate,” I confirmed. “I’ll go talk to my landlord tomorrow afternoon.”
“We’ll miss you,” he muttered and wiggled his glass to indicate that he wanted another shot.
“Pretty sure it’ll be great,” Rafael said with a smirk.
“Yup,” Jackson confirmed.
While my father roared angrily, I poured Jaegers and laughed.
“Kitty,” Elsa said quietly. “Let’s talk tomorrow morning before you sort out your place.”
“Sure,” I said. “Why?”
“I have an idea.”
“Oh,” Grandma Hazel squealed. “Can I come? I love ideas!”
Chapter Twenty-six
Lost? Go Nowhere.
Everyone apparently loved ideas, if the crowd on my parents’ front porch was any indication. Elsa told them to leave, and after some pushing and shoving, they did.
Then it was just Elsa, Joel and me, and that’s when Elsa blew my mind away.
“I hate my job,” she began the mind-blowing, and went on, “You only work a few hours every week, Joel, and you’re bored out of your mind.”
Their eyes met, and after a beat, Joel sighed and nodded.
“God, yes, I am,” he said. “Have thought about getting a hobby but I can’t find one I like.”
“You don’t even have a job,” Elsa said and looked at me.
I was about to protest because selling drinks might not be the most amusing occupation on the face of the planet, but it was a bona fide employment. She ignored my imminent protests with a sweet smile.
“We’re good at finding things.”
We were.
“We should start a private investigator business.”
I stared at her and Joel started laughing.
“That’d be something,” he murmured, but I could hear in his voice that he was intrigued.
“You got all that money from the Az,” Elsa said to me. “We could add what Joel and I get if we sell our condos, and it’ll be enough to buy a building downtown.
I blinked.
“No, it isn’t. Do you even know what a building in Portland would –”
“Not downtown Portland, Kitty. Downtown Nowhere.”
What the… what?
“Yeah,” Joel drawled. “It would be more than enough. There would be money left to keep us going for quite a while even without clients.”
“There’s a building up for sale,” Elsa went on. “Next to Bubba’s. Three stories. Business on the ground floor. Two apartments on the second floor and they’ve converted the attic into a big loft.”
“Shit. You’re right,” Joel said.
My mind was whirling with ideas suddenly. The three of us living in the same house. Running a PI-business. Going to Bubba’s. Finding shit for a living. Having fun.
“You’d move up here permanently?” I asked.
“Totally,” Elsa said. “I love it here. I would prefer to have a place of my own and not mooch on your parents, but the town is great. The people are even greater.”
“Joel?” I asked.
“What she said. Plus, my condo downtown is the size of a stamp, and it’s quiet up here. For someone like me… You know I like when it’s quiet. The buzz from all the systems running in a big city isn’t my thing.”
Okay.
Right.
Shit.
Could I move back to Nowhere permanently?
“What would we call the company?” Joel asked, as if it was a done deal already and, oh my God.
It was.
“Nowhere PI,” I said. “We’d have the best slogan ever.”
“What?”
I grinned at them and raised my hands in a shrug.
“Lost? Go Nowhere.”
***
Dad cried when I told him and Janie about our plans. He said it was because he got dust in his eyes, but it wasn’t. His only daughter was moving back to Nowhere and had together with her friends bought a house which would need repairs and maintenance and fixing up until the end of time.
So, he cried a little.
“Who placed bets on Jackson versus Rafael?” I asked to distract everyone.
My father still got comments about the beetroot-induced dance performance, and he didn’t need to get teased for crying a few adorable tears of joy. At least, not by anyone other than me.
“Come on,” I coaxed when no one admitted they’d been part of a bet that was stupid. “Just tell me.”
Everyone slowly raised their hands.
Everyone.
Even Rafael and Jackson, which was just plain ridiculous.
“Huh,” I grunted mostly because I didn’t know what to say.
Then a phone rang, and Joel, Elsa and I stared at it.
It was our newly acquired business phone.
“Good afternoon,” Elsa answered chirpily. “You’ve called Nowhere.”
This caused a minor confusion, which the three of us probably enjoyed a little too much, and then we had our first client.
“Another dog?” Joel murmured, and I could tell that he wanted to get into the systems to start searching.
“A Poohuahua,” Elsa said with a nod. “Ran off two weeks ago and has been spotted down in Salem, drinking tequila.”
Yikes.
“I see Mexican food in our future,” Joel said with a content sigh.
“And mariachi bands,” I added happily. “I’ll go down there tomorrow and get the lay of the land.”
Fun times; you may commence, I thought with a grin.
“It’ll be great to have you living up here,” Jackson suddenly said, looking pleased with himself, with me, and the situation in general. “Bubba’s tonight?”
“Or dinner downtown?” Rafael cut in, apparently equally pleased. “There’s this small seafood place, just by the river…”
Both suggestions sounded nice, but I had made my mind up and didn’t hesitate to convey my decision.
“I don’t want to date you, Rafael. You’re too good-looking,” I said.
Jackson smirked, but I turned to him.
“And so are you,” I shared. “I won’t date you either.”
Jack’s smirk faded quickly, and I watched the two smoking hot but thoroughly confused men in front of me.
Then I raised my chin, straightened my shoulders, and told them.
“I’ve decided that I’m gonna pass on both of you and find me a regular dude. Someone like Al.”
“An older guy?”
“Al, but my age,” I elaborated.
They looked at each other in surprise and started laughing loudly.
I growled which made them turn and laugh right in my face.
“I will,” I insisted.
They kept grinning, which looked ridiculously good on both of them.
“Yeah, we’ll see about that, Kitty,” Jackson said calmly.
“Indeed, we will,” Rafael added with a smirk.
Well, shit.
Reminder – if you want to keep reading about Kitty, Elsa, Joel, Grandma Hazel, Grandpa Hunter and all the others in Nowhere…
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Table of Contents
Copyrig
ht
My thanks
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Keep reading?