I turned to Lucia. “How do you deal with this crazy?”
She shrugged, then spooned up some of her loaded baked potato soup that I’d seen her throw some herbs de Provence in (the fresh kind she made herself). She tasted it, scrunched her nose and tossed in a pinch of salt.
Guess Lucia was back in the Zen Zone.
A timer went off, and I dashed to the ovens to pull out my cranberry orange muffins just as Raye raced in to come to a jolting stop, her eyes on me.
“Are you okay? I heard Mr. Shithead cornered you,” she said.
“I did not get cornered!” I yelled.
“Oh my God.” She was pressing the air down in front of her. “Okay. Calm down.”
I yanked out the muffins and put them on the prep table.
“There’s something up with him,” I shared. “We need an Angels Confab. I didn’t get much out of him before Super Shaw showed up and saved a day that didn’t need saving, but what he did say didn’t sound that hot.”
“I’ll make the calls,” she replied then looked to all the baked goods lined up on the counter. “You haven’t filled the cases yet?”
I stood still a moment, contemplating why Carmy from The Bear didn’t take his time stuck in the freezer to rethink his life choices in a more positive way: that being getting out of that freezer and running for the hills.
Then I went to our freezer and banged my head against it.
Raye came to me and stroked my back.
“It’s okay,” she soothed. “Luna will be here soon. We’ll get the others in. We’ll figure it out.”
I stopped banging my head and turned to her. “That’d be good.”
“I’m scared to ask about how Gabe carried you into your apartment last night and didn’t come back out.”
I turned back to the freezer.
She grabbed my shoulders and moved me to face her.
“We’ll leave that alone for a while,” she offered.
“Good call,” I said.
She swept a hand over the baked goods. “I’ll take some of these to the cases. Cool?”
I nodded.
She grabbed a tray of chocolate chip pecan muffins.
I followed her with two trays of cookies.
Angels Confabs were rarely attended by all the Angels because we all worked, and a few of us—me, Joey, Gemma—had second jobs.
But boy howdy, did those bitches traipse in after they heard a) the erroneous information Mr. Shithead cornered me and b) Gabe spent the night.
We gathered behind the bar at The Surf Club, which wasn’t optimal, but it happened often because a) we all worked there and b) we all had bills to pay, so it wouldn’t do to be too far when someone wanted to order a cookie or a refill.
“So, you’re finally not treating Gabe like he’s patient zero with the next coronavirus,” Harlow started it.
No, it was Gabe who was avoiding me.
But…
