"Garrett's not happy about a lot of stuff."
"I can't believe Mace let you have a phone," I said to Otis as he directed me through town. "I didn't have a phone when I was your age. Mace is really slipping."
"They all have GPS trackers. Blade made him an app to show where everyone is," Theo said.
"Because that's not creepy. It's not enough that you live on a haunted estate. Now peeping Mace is tracking our every move."
"He's tracking the cars too," Otis said helpfully.
"Of course he is."
"Turn right," Otis said. "We're here." He unbuckled his seat belt as I pulled into a parking space across the street from a very familiar brick building.
"I, ah—are you sure this is right?"
The kids had already run across the street to the Art Café, calling, "We're late!" as they rushed inside.
I followed, squinting when I walked in out of the bright sun. There was Hazel, wearing those overalls. One of the straps had fallen off her shoulder. She was wearing a cropped shirt. I wanted to run my hand across the strip of bare midriff. Instead I offered to be a nude model.
"I can't believe you'd make that comment in front of those children," Hazel scolded. She peered at Otis and Theo. "They aren't your kids, are they?"
"You wound me, Hazel. I'm not that old. They're like—" I waved my hands around and pulled a number out of thin air. "Ten?"
"We're twelve!" Theo said.
"Right, right."
"You don't even know their ages?" Hazel admonished, huffing as she pulled the rope on the dumbwaiter. "Are you here for lunch? Because I actually have an art retreat, though I guess I could start Ida and her friends with their drinks and make you guys a quick bite." She yanked on the rope.
She was so short that the dumbwaiter wasn't really going up that far.
I stepped beside her and took over the pulley. "Your arms are so short we'd be here all day."
Hazel snorted, hands on her hips. Her thumbs were right at that strip of bare skin at her waist. I wanted to press my mouth to the spot. I forced my gaze back to the dumbwaiter and hefted it up.
"Just wrap the rope around the—"
"I know. I own a number of hotels in historic buildings that had similar features. Though eventually I converted them all to be automatic because I'm not a masochist," I said as I locked the break.
"Do you need a sandwich that bad?" she muttered.
"We're not here for lunch. We're here for the art retreat," Otis exclaimed.
"You are?" Hazel asked. She looked a bit put out.
"We want to learn how to make designs for our T-shirt business," Theo said excitedly.
"My brothers are budding entrepreneurs, just like me!" I grinned at her. She scowled.
"The art retreat is upstairs. I have alcoholic drinks for the adults, but I guess I'll make you two some juice."
"You're not going to offer me a beverage?" I asked.
7
Hazel
"No, I'm not going to offer you a beverage," I hissed at him as we followed his little brothers upstairs.
