Ugh, you are so becoming what Gabe said you’d become. Bitter and gross, Dreamer admonished me.
No, Logic clapped back. She’s looking after herself and never, ever going to be anybody’s doormat again. For sure she’s never going to be anybody’s meal ticket.
I stared at the cute Mirabel on my cake, scared Dreamer was right.
And not particularly happy Dreamer brought up Gabe.
So, okay, I’d been obsessing about our ugly convo now for months.
Not to mention, it was one of the least fun things I’d had to endure in my life, Gabe having to be my bodyguard for days after we had that exchange of words (not to mention part two, I knew how he tasted, and dang, he tasted phenomenal, and the man knew how to use his mouth (and tongue)).
But for once, I was mentally bellyaching about something else, a nice reprieve from mentally questioning my sanity that I followed up that amazing kiss with that horrible chat.
I shook off these thoughts, and after I took several snaps and did a quick video of the cake, I started to build the box around it that would keep it safe in transport, glad I only had that one cake to deliver that day.
Because, as if having a job and running my own business wasn’t enough, I wasn’t only a baker, cake decorator and server, I was also an Avenging Angel.
No, this wasn’t a paid position.
In essence (okay, not essence, in total), along with Raye, Luna, Jessie, Harlow, Shanti, and our newbie chicks, Gemma and Joey (who also lived at the Oasis and worked at The Surf Club), I was a vigilante.
Unh-hunh, you read that right.
We were vigilantes.
This was how I learned Kev and his now long-ish-dead friend, Trev, were pulling a dating app scam.
This was how me and my gals, and their guys, and the entire Hottie Squad got involved in trying to figure out who murdered Trev.
We’d had a few minor missions since all was revealed about what happened to Trev, nothing too exciting, or dangerous.
But it was the only excitement I got nowadays.
We were currently in a lull with missions, and this was both good and bad.
Good, because I needed the time to do other things, things that meant I could make deposits into my bank account.
And bad, because this meant life was all grind.
My grind was a never-ending cycle of baking, decorating, delivering, and serving.
Sometimes (rarely), I’d hang with the girls at our killer AA headquarters (which was actually a storage unit, but trust me, our mysterious benefactor, Arthur, set us up sweet).
Or sometimes, I’d hit an Oasis Square shindig (my apartment complex was the best in Phoenix, and not just because it had an awesome mural painted on the outside, window boxes filled with greenery the tenants didn’t have to tend, and a recently refurbished pool and courtyard area, but because, yeah, some of the tenants were a little loopy, but they were all fun).
Or, last, I’d hit up a whole Avenging Angels/Hottie Squad get-together.
Those were even rarer for me because, obviously, Gabe could be there (and often was), so I avoided them, but I couldn’t avoid all of them or people would start to notice.
On those occasions I didn’t, he gave me a wide berth (ouch) and barely acknowledged me (ouch times two).
But I’d bought that. It was on me.
It was what I wanted.
Oh, girl, I was there during that kiss, and all that delicious tension scorching between you two before it, and you are a big, fat LIAR, Dreamer said.
He’s gorgeous. He has a great body. He obviously is seriously practiced at kissing, and we know what THAT means, so he probably thinks he’s God’s gift, thus we totally dodged a bullet, Logic replied.
