Colbie showered and dressed and took a deep breath before reading the twins’ texts.
Kent had locked his car keys in the car. While it was running. In a blizzard.
Shock.
Kurt had been fired from his sandwich shop job for hitting on the boss’s daughter.
“Son of a Cheez-It.” Instead of responding, or giving in to the stroke she could feel coming on, Colbie set her phone aside and filled out the rental app Elle had given her. “Should I list you as my roommate?” she asked the cat.
Cinder rolled onto her back on the hardwood floor in the sole sunspot and closed her eyes in bliss.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You don’t listen to rap at earsplitting levels in the middle of the night or ask for money, right?”
“Meow.”
“Good enough.”
Five minutes later, Colbie brought the application and her rent money to Elle’s office on the second floor. Elle wasn’t alone in the office. She had two others with her, and they were all eating muffins from the downstairs coffee shop.
“Willa owns the pet shop,” Elle said by way of introduction, pointing to her friend on the right. “And Kylie here works at Reclaimed Woods, the furniture shop.”
Kylie offered Colbie a muffin while asking the room a question for the ages. “How am I supposed to stay in shape when the best part about life is food?”
“You could exercise,” Elle said.
“I do,” Kylie said. “My cardio of choice is online shopping.”
“Very mature.”
Kylie laughed. “I am mature. But not, like, mature mature. I mean, I pay my bills on time but I still have to say stuff like ‘righty tighty, lefty loosey’ to figure shit out.”
“Honey, we all do that,” Willa said, finishing up a muffin and licking her fingers. “Ungh. If I were murdered right now, my chalk outline would be a circle. Keane won’t be able to get his arms around me.”
Muffins weren’t on Colbie’s diet either but she told herself that her New York diet could be different from her San Francisco diet. Her first bite of a blueberry muffin had her moaning. “Tell me this counts as a serving of fruit.”
“Maybe we should go to the gym later and do some crunches or something,” Willa said, sounding less than enthused about this prospect.
Kylie shook her head. “My brain just auto-corrected the word crunches to cupcakes. And we all know that once you lick off the frosting, a cupcake is really just a muffin. Which is almost a serving of fruit, as Colbie pointed out.”
Contemplating this, they all ate some more muffins.
“Listen,” Willa said to Colbie. “I’m really sorry about what Daisy Duke did to you yesterday. She’s usually such a good girl but that stray black cat is her nemesis.”
“She’s not a stray anymore,” Colbie said. “She’s sleeping on my bed as we speak.”
“You were able to catch her?” Willa asked. “I’ve been trying for weeks. I wanted to find her a home.”
“I didn’t catch her,” Colbie said. “She caught me.” She took another muffin. “So who makes these little bites of heaven? I want to bow down before them.”
“Tina. And she’s currently spoken for,” Kylie said. “If she’s ever single again, we’re all on a waiting list for her.”
They all eyeballed the last muffin.
“How about we split it four ways,” Kylie suggested.
Elle produced a pocketknife.
“What the hell is that?” Kylie asked.
“I always carry a knife,” Elle said. “You know, in case of having to split a muffin into four pieces. And don’t look so shocked. You carry dangerous tools yourself. Yesterday I watched you use a huge jigsaw like it was nothing.”
“Yes, but that was for work,” Kylie said. “Although you’ve got a point about being able to split a muffin. I bet I could do that with a jigsaw in an emergency.”
Elle carefully and surgically split her muffin. “How’s the elbow?” she asked Colbie.
“Fine.” She’d had far worse injuries breaking up fights between her brothers. “Thanks again for taking such good care of me yesterday.”
“That was all Spence.”
“He was great too,” she said.
“He’s always great,” Willa said. “He’s one of the good ones, smart, super-sexy eye candy, and he doesn’t even know it.”
Elle shook her head.
“What?” Willa said. “I’m taken, not dead.”
“What is it that Spence does for a living?” she asked.
Elle gave a little smile. “A lot.”
“Such as?”
“Such as a lot.”
Kylie and Willa, watching the exchange like they were at a tennis match, popped their quarters of the last muffin into their mouths in unison.
Colbie turned to them. “Is she being mysterious on purpose?”
Kylie choked on her muffin. Willa patted her on the back before answering. “Spence is our resident genius.”
Elle gave her a look.
“Well, he is,” Willa said. “He’s the smartest person we all know. That’s no secret.”
“But what he does for a job is?” Colbie asked.
“Let’s just say we’re a little protective of him,” Willa said. “For good reason.”
“He seems like a guy who can protect himself,” she said slowly.
“Oh hell yeah, he can,” Willa said. “Just a few weeks ago, Kylie here was locking up late one night on her own and some guy started hassling her, and Spence—”
“Willa,” Elle said in warning.
“What?” Willa asked. “He . . .” She mimed some sort of karate motion and straightened with a smile. “Kicked ass like a glasses-wearing superhero.”
Colbie had no problem picturing Spence stepping in to help a friend in trouble. But picturing him using actual physical force gave her a ridiculous feminine flutter.
Kylie was hugging herself now and Willa’s smile faded as she seemed to realize that she’d brought the vivid memories back too harshly. “I’m sorry,” Willa said, hugging Kylie tight. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s okay. Really.” Kylie gave a little smile. “He was my superhero that night. And he never even lost his glasses.” She was wearing a heavy work apron and covered in wood chips. And Colbie realized that in one of her big apron pockets was a stuffed animal. A very small French bulldog.
But then it moved. It was real, and she laughed in delight because the dog was smaller than Cinder.
“His name’s Vinnie,” Kylie said. “He’s a foster fail.” She handed him over to Colbie and she and the dog eyed each other.
Vinnie’s head was the same size as the rest of his entire body and his huge deep brown soulful eyes melted Colbie. “Oh my God,” she said, snuggling the thing close. “How do you get anything done other than loving him up all day long?”
Kylie smiled. “That’s why he practically lives in my pocket—well, unless I’m working the big table saw or the planer or anything dangerous like that. He’s small because he was malnourished but I think he’s still growing.”
“I need a cutie like this to keep in my pocket,” Colbie said. “No danger in what I do.”
“Which is what again?” Elle asked.
Colbie met Elle’s gaze. Friendly enough, but sharp as a razor. “I’m a writer.”
“Oh, cool,” Kylie said. “What do you write?”