“Problem here?” Gabe asked from behind me.
“No,” she said quickly.
“She’s not a fan of completing our agreement by paying the remainder on delivery,” I told him.
Gabe stared into my eyes a millisecond before he looked to her.
“You’ll be doing that about now,” he told her.
“As I explained to Willow, I’m a little behind, so I’ll be happy to Venmo the rest to her after the party. Latest, tomorrow morning,” she said, now all smiles and flirtatious glances.
“That’s not the way this goes,” Gabe told her, like he’d memorized my policies and personally wrote my contract.
“Okay,”—she leaned her tall, svelte frame on the doorjamb of her three-million-dollar house, and the bitch actually batted her (semi-permanent fake) eyelashes at him—“you got me. My husband gave me a budget, and I exceeded it a little bit. I just have to?—”
“Let’s go,” Gabe cut her off and rounded me, putting a hand in the small of my back as he did, so I had no choice but to turn and start moving toward the driveway seeing as he was pushing me that way.
“Wait! You can’t go!” she called, and I could tell she was following us. “What will Chrysanthemum do for a cake?”
“Go to Costco,” Gabe said toward the Jeep.
“Costco?” Her voice sounded horrified.
Gabe opened the passenger door then took the cake from me so I could get in.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she said, standing with us and unwedging her phone from where it was shoved in the skintight fabric at the thigh of her leggings. “I’ll Venmo now.”
“You need to add a ten percent hassle fee to your contract, babe,” Gabe remarked in my direction.
The Arcadia Squad member made a wounded pip at being called a hassle by a hot guy.
Bet she’d never experienced that before.
I pressed my lips together in an effort not to laugh.
My phone in my crossbody vibrated, I pulled it out and saw the Venmo notification.
“Thank you so much,” I told her.
Gabe handed her the cake.
It was ultra hilarious to see how bad she wanted to scorch me with a glare but couldn’t because I was standing next to one of the top ten hotties in Phoenix (and he worked with the other nine—or, actually, twelve).
“I’m sure Mumsy will love it,” she forced out to me.
Good Lord, she called her five-year-old Mumsy.
You won. Be gracious, not bitchy, Dreamer called me on it.
But…Mumsy? Logic demanded.
“In, babe,” Gabe grunted at me.
I turned to the Jeep, got a handhold, a foothold, and angled myself up. Though, this time I was helped when Gabe’s hands came to my hips, and he hefted me in.
At his touch and the easy display of his strength, my breath took a hike, and my ass landed in the seat.
He slammed the door and rounded the hood while I concentrated on getting my lungs working again. It took as long as it took him to get in, both of us to buckle up and Gabe to start us on our way for me to best that endeavor.
