He smirks at me. I just want to kiss his face. “Are you saying I usually stink?” he volleys with a raised brow.
My eyes roll heavenward before I respond. “No. You’re usually a mixture of soap and sunshine.”
“My natural scent is sunshine? I wonder what that smells like,” he muses. “I must sniff myself next time.”
Dinner moves along and the four of us fall into an easy conversation. It’s nice being around a man who my best friends actually like. Both hated Dre for different reasons. It should have been a sign. They rarely wanted to go with us anywhere. He’d always say they were jealous because I’d bagged a local celebrity. I thought he was full of shit but left it alone. I should have followed my first mind.
Axel excuses himself to answer a phone call, and that’s when I see him. No, not Dre. It’s the other asshole—Ashley’s dad, my ex-boss. His brown face is pinched, and his eyes are beady as he moves his rotund balding ass in my direction.
“Heaven,” he utters my name like it’s an insult.
“What in the hell do you want?” I grit back.
His bushy eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Wow. You can’t even be friendly.”
“We both know you’re not over here to be friendly. Your daughter isn’t friendly either. Why should I be friendly?”
“How do you know you didn’t just mess up an opportunity to work for iFit again?” he challenges smugly.
“One, you’re not over here to offer. Two, I wouldn’t accept, so there’s that,” I push back.
“I can’t help but notice you’re here in Hawaii…”
“Congratulations, your vision works.”
“Look, this better not be some sad attempt to get Dre back…”
“Why in the hell would I want a man back who’s been sleeping with a whore for the past year?” I ask calmly.
Curtis Conway frowns at Keri and Latoya when they laugh. “My daughter is not a whore; she got him fair and square.”
“If you call knowingly sleeping with an engaged man in the bed he shares with his fiancée while she’s out of town working for you—her dad—‘fair,’ then I guess you’re right.”
“My baby deserves to be happy.”
“I can’t wait for her stepmom to leave you for the pool boy.”
“That’s both trite and unoriginal.”
I shrug. “Like your daughter’s writing?”
“Don’t be bitter because he prefers her.”
“I’m actually trying to enjoy my vacation, but you and your daughter seem intent on ruining it with your bullshit. I’m not bitter that your daughter resorted to whoring around with my ex. I’m tired of yall bothering me because of it.”
“She’s not a whore.”
“The biggest,” I counter, holding my hands really far apart. “She sneaked around with a guy in a relationship and helped him pack up his fiancée’s belongings. What would you call it—World’s Biggest Enabler?”
He’s losing the verbal battle if the redness of his face is a clue. I know before he says it that he’s going to try to win with money.
“If you’re going around telling people my daughter is a whore, I will sue you for defamation of character. I will take everything you own,” he threatens while wagging his finger at me.
“And we’ll counter sue you, your daughter, and her future husband for harassment,” Axel growls from behind Curtis.
I promise that man moonlights as a ninja.
“Who in the hell are you?” Curtis demands just like his daughter did earlier in the week.
