I bit my lip, considering a return to where we’d left off. After all, I had only the first three digits of his social. I didn’t need them, but I hated to leave things unfinished.
Unfortunately, my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing. Satisfied that I’d cleaned up Malone’s cuts as best I could, I washed my hands, then checked my phone. Havisham was having a flying duck fit because I had clients to see.
Of course, she’d understand if I told her what Malone and I were up to.
But now that the heat of the moment had cooled, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go down that road.
A coward? Maybe.
“I gotta go,” I said with a deep sigh. “Mulligan on cashing in my benefits?”
His eyes were flashing, smoldering, or both. “I’m gonna hold you to it.”
I followed him, intending to leave as he did. He paused at the tiny table by the door where I’d placed Mrs. Q’s copy ofDaring Greatly. “This is a really good book.”
My insides froze. What was it I’d so blithely said about how my perfect dude wouldn’t be afraid to read a self-help book?
“Mrs. Q suggested I read it.”
He paused in the breezeway while I locked my apartment door.
“Thanks again,” I said, suddenly feeling shy.
“There’s nothing to thank me for,” he said. “You just let me know when you’re ready for that mulligan.”
Chapter 18
After meeting with a few new clients and closing down Finnegan’s, we went to the Waffle House, of course. We were engaged in one of my projects: sewing shut the flaps of several pairs of men’s underwear.
“You did wash these, right?” Salcedo asked, her mouth pursed in a look of disgust.
“Twice. In hot water,” I said. “Also, the quicker you stitch, the sooner we get this project done.”
“This is disgusting. Some other man’s underwear.” Salcedo stopped sewing long enough to gape at Havisham, whose stitches were quick and precise. She was sewing three flaps to my one. “How do you do that?”
“I had to take home ec,” Havisham said.
“What?”
“Home economics. Sew, clean, make sure you serve vegetables with meat.”
“I probably should’ve had that class,” the youngest among us said. “Mom had me taking four sciences, four maths, AP this and AP that. Now I struggle to sew on a button.”
“Probably could’ve used that class myself,” I said as I picked up the last of the underwear.
“Maybe if I’d taken more classes in math and science, I wouldn’t still be working at a bar,” Havisham said.
“Y’all using up two of my tables and now you’re sewing on men’s drawers, but you don’t have any boyfriends,” Betty said as she took the dishes from the booth behind me. “Y’all are some odd ducks.”
“Well, we couldn’t very well do this project at the table where we ate,” I said. “Might get food on these freshly laundered briefs.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Y’all are weird.”
I paused. Being called weird by a Waffle House waitress had to be a whole new level of strange. I didn’t want to imagine some of the things Betty had seen.
But Betty also reminded me of our previous late-night conversation. “Salcedo, at the risk of failing your Bechdel Test, I need to get both of your opinions on something.”
“What?” Salcedo asked at the same time Havisham said, “Shoot.”
