Muffin Top

“I don’t care about your brother. I care about her.” She hooked her thumb toward Lucy.

“I’m getting to that,” Frankie said.

Ignoring the man, Henrietta turned to Lucy. “Does he do everything this slow? I mean, some things are nice at a leisurely pace—walks, jazz, and making love, for instance—but storytelling ain’t one of them.”

Lucy would have answered, but there was no way she could do so without letting go of the laugh building up inside her, especially when she spotted the offended and confused expression on Frankie’s face. The poor guy had probably never been shot down so completely in his life.

“An asshole was hitting on her.” The words came out of his mouth in a rush as if he hadn’t been planning on saying them.

Henrietta’s eyes went wide with interest, and she turned her attention to Frankie. “Go on.”

“He was telling her she wasn’t the hottest thing on the planet just the way she was.”

No. No. No. This wasn’t good. This was the truth. It wasn’t the funny story about him spotting her crossing the street that they’d worked out. This was real-life humiliation used as story-time fodder.

She wanted to open her mouth and say something—anything—to shut Frankie up, but she was frozen like she was stuck in some kind of living dream where she couldn’t move. This was hell. This was like being in high school all over again before she’d gained the brass balls to take on the world with her chin high.

Damn. It wasn’t that you couldn’t go home again, it was that you shouldn’t because it was like returning to a time when you were your most awkward self all over again.

“So,” Henrietta said. “This man was an idiot and an asshole.”

Frankie grinned at the older woman, crossed over to the counter, and leaned on his forearms. The move wasn’t lost on the older woman, who snuck a look at the way his biceps peeked out from his T-shirt sleeves.

If he noticed, he didn’t play it up. Instead, he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I went over to Lucy and said I was sorry I was late for our date. Then I helped the asshole see the need to vacate the premises.”

“Did you punch him in the face?” Henrietta asked with a bloodthirsty expression.

Frankie shrugged his broad shoulders. “Didn’t need to.” He crossed over to Lucy and wound his arm around her waist, pulling her in close. “And that’s how I ended up as the lucky guy dating Lucy Kavanagh.”

Finding jeans that fit her ass and the dip of her waist was a problem. What wasn’t a problem? Finding the right words for almost any situation. There was a reason why she’d gone into crisis communication: she didn’t panic, and she always knew what to say.

But standing in the middle of the antique and collectibles shop next to a Queen Anne dressing table and a cabinet of paste jewelry from the 1920s, she couldn’t string a sentence together. Why? Because Frankie Hartigan was doing the unthinkable—he was taking one of those really shitty moments that was repeated too often in her life and tweaking it so instead of being at the butt of the joke, she was the center of the story’s action in a good way. She had no idea what to do with that.

Henrietta didn’t seem to be similarly affected as she gave Frankie a considering look. “Top drawer under the stuffed cock.”

Of course that’s where it was. Lucy walked over to the rooster that had fallen under the taxidermist’s knife. It was a Brahma and stood almost three feet tall, with pure white feathers accented by a smattering of black plumage that went down to its feet. It stood next to a sign that said Cock of the Walk on top of an old library card catalog cabinet. She opened the little drawer with a tiny picture of Wolfie clipped to the front and pulled out one of the gold wolf teeth found inside.

The pop of a new can of Diet Dr. Pepper being open sounded, drawing Lucy’s attention back to where Henrietta and Frankie stood on opposite sides of the counter, looking like two people who’d spent the last two decades gossiping over drinks.

Henriette moved her bendy straw from the empty Diet Dr. Pepper to the new can. “How long have you been dating?”

“Not long.” Frankie looked over at Lucy and grinned, obviously so pleased that he’d figured out how to charm Henrietta that he practically reeked of self-satisfaction.

That massive ego of his should annoy her. Instead it just made her giggle—something she covered with a short, fake coughing fit. Remember, this is all fake. Nothing to feel here. Just move along.

After waiting for Lucy to stop cough-laughing, Henrietta asked Frankie, “What are your intentions?”