“I spoke with her fairly recently,” Nat said, nodding.
Uh, yeah…
“She told us—I mean me—” Nat stole a look in my direction, “—she might be inheriting some money, but that it didn’t look like it was going to work out. Something about needing to get married. She said she didn’t want to.”
Smooth. If Rick hadn’t been in the room, I’d be patting Nat on the back.
Old Rick didn’t look too happy.
“What?” he asked, his voice rising. “She needs to make that work. What do you mean?”
Nat shrugged innocently. “Not sure, Jonesy. She isn’t getting married.”
Rick jumped to his feet, pacing to one end of the conference room and back. I wasn’t sure, but I think he was mumbling to himself.
Nat looked at me and shrugged.
Jesus, what was up with this guy?
He turned back to Nat. “She has to find someone. Anyone will do,” he insisted.
“She has to do nothing of the sort. She’s walking away,” Nat said.
“Shit. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Nat frowned. “What wasn’t supposed to happen? Jonesy, what is going on?”
Rick ran his hand through his hair, becoming more distraught by the moment.
“Cordy…” Rick mumbled again. “Cordy told me she’d pick one of you…”
Oh, shit.
“Rick, what are you saying? What do you mean the one of us?” Nat stood, hands on hips. He didn’t look too happy.
Rick’s face turned white as a ghost, then bright pink. I had a feeling someone was in trouble.
He shook his head. “Nat, I’m sorry. I was carrying out the wishes of my client. I couldn’t tell you everything.”
“Well, it seems like the cat’s out of the bag now, so fill us in.”
Rick looked from Nat to me and back again. “It was no coincidence that you, Brose here, and Win met Garnet. Linc was a lucky coincidence. You are who Cordy chose. It was up to me to orchestrate the meetings. He thought surely she’d like at least one of you.”
He shook head sadly. “But I guess not.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit. What a situation. I’d known Cordy was a little eccentric, but not a mastermind, for Christ’s sake. How did he even conceive of an idea like that?
And it was all a set up?
But look at the results. I was in love. Three other guys were in love. And Garnet loved us all. Not such a bad outcome, if you asked me. But Rick didn’t need to know the details.
He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door. “Thanks for the update. I’m sorry to know it didn’t work out for you or any of the guys. That’s a real shame.” And he was gone.
Nat and I looked at each other. “C’mon,” he said. “We need to talk to Garnet right now.”
* * *
Nat parked in front of the Drive By, and we ran inside. It was early yet, so we figured she wouldn’t be too busy. But even if she were, this was pretty goddamn important.