“No doubt.”
We still didn’t move.
“Later,” he said gruffly. “We’ll have this conversation later.”
Nodding, I reluctantly slipped out of his embrace and went to pick up my phone. I didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer. I silenced the phone and said to Slash, “It’s not Jazz, but I’ll walk you downstairs anyway.”
We were standing in the doorway of the back door when Jazz drove up and parked.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, putting his sunglasses on and heading to his bike. He gave Jazz a chin nod in passing.
“Hi, Slash. Bye, Slash,” Jazz said to him.
He straddled his bike, turned the key, and a few moments after his engine roared to life, he was gone. My attention was completely on Slash, and I didn’t stop staring at him until he drove out of the parking lot.
“Someone’s deep into it,” Jazz commented with a wry smile.
I sighed. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Well, I want to hear all about it. Wait, is this more of a girls’-pizza-night kind of talk, or we-can-sift-flour-while-we-talk kind of talk?”
“It would be better on my wallet if we sifted flour and talked.”
“Mine, too. Ugh, throwing all your money toward your business is the right answer, but like, I really want a pizza with cheese baked right into the crust.”
I moaned. “Stop. That sounds incredible.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“Well spotted,” I said with a laugh as we headed into the bakery kitchen.
“No, I mean, what if it’s the baby that’s craving the pizza? You’d deny your child pizza?” She stared at me, her brown eyes wide and earnest.
“Do people say no to you?” I demanded. “If a siren and a lawyer had a love child, you’d be their offspring.”
“Weird, but I’ll take it.”
“I’m all about not denying my child pizza, but I just ate breakfast.”
“Can’t you pretend to be a hobbit so we can have second breakfast?”
“Call Mario’s,” I commanded. “I’m not strong enough to hold out any longer.”
“Atta girl.” She dug through her purse for her phone while I went to the desk and removed a sketchbook and pencil.
While Jazz placed our order, I sketched out the vision I had for the Bennington’s engagement cake.
“Pizza will be here in forty-five minutes. I told him to come to the back entrance because of the street. Speaking of the street, have you seen construction workers doing any sort of work at all, trying to get it finished?”
I paused mid-sketch. “Now that you mention it, no.” I tried to think about the last time I’d seen anyone, and it had been a while. A couple of weeks at least. “I’ll call the city and see if I can find out what’s going on.”
She leaned over to peer at the sketch book. “You drew that just now?”
“Yep.”
“Seriously? On the fly?”
“Not really on the fly,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, mulling it over. It sort of came to me last night in a dream.”