I hadn’t expected both women to be sitting there staring forlornly at their vehicles as if they hoped that they would be fixed miraculously on their own.
“Um, negative.” Fran’s eyes went to Mavis.
Mavis, on the other hand, was busy laughing her head off.
“Do you honestly think that we know how to change tires?” she snickered. “When we need something fixed like this, we call that number on the back of our driver’s license. Roadside assistance.”
My lips twitched. “I can teach you.”
“Actually, you can’t.” Mavis sighed. “Because I already called someone. They’re here.”
I turned to look, finding Murphy trudging his way up the drive, looking pissed as hell.
My brows rose at the look of contempt on his face. “Murphy.”
Murphy’s eyes briefly left Mavis to meet mine, and he jerked his chin up. “’Sup, Taos.”
My lips twitched. “Not fuckin’ much. Came to take my girl to breakfast. You?” I murmured, watching in amusement as he sidled up to Mavis’s van and grunted out an expletive.
“Came to help Princess with her car,” Murphy answered, sounding pissed.
I looked at Mavis to see how she reacted to those words and found her scowling hard at Murphy.
I looked to Fran next to see her eyes glittering with laughter.
I had a feeling I was missing something, and I didn’t know what.
“You call me Princess one more time, I’m going to shove my foot down your throat,” Mavis snarled. “And wasn’t that you who said this was a van, and not a car?”
Murphy grumbled something under his breath as he dropped his tools down onto the concrete that Mavis’s car was parked on. From there, he reached for her son.
“Let me have him,” he ordered. “You’re doing this. There’s absolutely no reason in hell that you shouldn’t know how to change your own fucking tire.”
“Don’t curse in front of my kid,” Mavis said as she glared at the man who’d just taken Vlad from her.
I chose that moment to pull Fran into my arms and walk her backward.
Neither adult noticed us leave. Vlad did, though, grinning happily at me as he bounced in Murphy’s arms.
I waited until we were inside the house to say, “What the hell was that?”
Fran laughed and threw her arms around my neck.
I groaned at the feel of her warm body pressing up against my cold one.
“Apparently, when Murphy and Mavis first met, it was at CrossFit. Murphy told Mavis not to do something because she might hurt herself, and Mavis blew him off. She hurt herself, and he’s apparently been pretty smug about it ever since. And Mavis, not liking the smugness, pretty much goes out of her way to give him shit.” Fran shook her head. “Funnily enough, Mavis asked Murphy his thoughts on her buying that particular van. He told her not to get it. And let’s just say they’re like water and oil.”
My lips twitched at that news.
“I can tell,” I mused.
Even from the front bedroom, I could see that they were still bickering.
Mavis was changing her tire, though.
“How did last night go?” Fran asked quietly.
I’d officially handed the case over to the FBI agent.
And though I would help if needed, there was really no reason to. The FBI agent was seasoned, had a good track record, and had resources that I didn’t have, or no longer wanted to have.
“I handed the case off.” I turned from the window. “Now that the FBI is in town and on the cases, I won’t be called in anymore. I can go back to my own work.”
Fran frowned. “But you never stopped working at the gym.”
Mavis snickered as she pushed into the room, startling the both of us and hitting me in the back with the door. “You didn’t know that you were having sex with the world’s most popular horror/suspense author that there is?”
She snatched her spare key off the door hanger that was directly next to my face, then left, leaving me alone with a very stunned Fran looking at me in horror.
There was a long moment of silence and then, “Oh. My. God.”
I blinked, surprised by her words. “What?”
She turned around and snatched her phone off the couch, pulling it up only to go directly to her Kindle app. “You’re my favorite author ever.”
That’s when I saw what she was reading.
My latest book.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re so adorable.”
“But, you know what would make your book even better?” she whispered, her eyes spreading into a mischievous smile.
I couldn’t help it. I had to know.
“What?” I asked.
“Sex,” she breathed. “Lots and lots of sex.”
I threw my head back and laughed. God, I loved this girl.
CHAPTER 16
Am I the only one that calculates how much sleep I’ll get before bed?
-text from Taos to Fran
TAOS
Two weeks later
My days of teaching classes almost full time were almost over.
I’d done my job.
I’d done my duty.
I could now go back to the back of the gym and ignore everyone and everything.