“I’d like that,” she said.
“Another time, then.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek. Then he descended the steel staircase that led to the parking lot. When he reached the bottom, he looked back up, gave a little salute, then disappeared around the corner.
She fell into bed that night feeling lighter than she’d ever felt. Her heart was buoyant.
23
It turned out that orgasms made her sleep extraordinarily well.
Sunday morning, Cami rolled out of bed with a lazy smile. She was in her comfiest pajamas, and her body was loose and relaxed. The warm sunlight streaming in through her windows gave the apartment a cozy cottage feel. She would have some tea and toaster strudel, then she’d do her weekly sweep and mop before relaxing with YouTube and its plethora of cat videos. If she was feeling ambitious, she’d draw herself a bath with those lavender-scented candles she liked so much. There would be no thinking about Dad or Lenny. It was going to be a good day. She could feel it.
She pulled up a streaming radio station on her laptop for something to listen to while she cleaned. Then she tied her hair back, and while the water boiled and her strudel toasted, she grabbed the broom. Might as well get a head start.
She hummed along to the music, hips swaying while she swept. Under the table, along the baseboard, and behind the bed skirt she went. She worked the week’s dust, dirt, and shed hair into a small pile ready for the dustpan.
As she was dragging the broom under the couch, her gaze snagged on something small and dark was caught under the back foot.
The toaster popped.
She pulled the broom over the object, hoping to dislodge it, but it only swiveled under the wooden sofa leg. She propped the broom against the back of the couch, then crouched to retrieve the errant garbage.
The tea kettle started to whistle, high-pitched and grating.
It was a shiny, rectangular piece of cardstock and weighty in her hand. A business card she didn’t recognize.
She turned it over.
In embossed gold font, she read: Desmond Blake, Co-President, Calogistics Acquisitions.
A prickle crawled over her scalp one hair follicle at a time. The tea kettle continued to screech, but she could barely hear it over the rush of blood in her ears.
She took a deep, intentional breath, and sat back on her heels.
There was no need to panic. She could text Des. It would be simple enough to ask for clarification. In retrospect, she was surprised it hadn’t come up earlier—the name of the company he worked for, his job title. Literally any useful bit of info. Calogistics didn’t sound like the name of a company that made sex toys, but she wasn’t an expert in the field. But co-president? Would Des be on door-to-door sales duty if he helped run the company? Maybe, she supposed, if it was small enough, but if it was that small, how could he afford that house of his? She just couldn’t wrap her brain around it.
And if, as she suspected, Calogistics wasn’t in the business of manufacturing adult toys, then Des had lied to her. Had been lying to her this whole time, from the moment they met. Just like Lenny. As if one large-scale betrayal wasn’t enough for the week.
After her thighs began to burn, she rose, turning to the best and most loyal friend she’d ever had: Google.
She switched off the stove and dragged the kettle to the side. With a cup of tea in hand, she sank onto her couch and waited for her laptop to boot up. There had to be a simple explanation for this. She couldn’t overreact without knowing all the info. That would be silly. But her hair still prickled, as if her instincts were on high alert.
‘DESMOND BLAKE CALOGISTICS SANTA MONICA’ she typed. Her fingers were shaking as she hit Enter.
The results populated her screen with blue links and black text. At the very top of them was a link to the Calogistics website. She clicked it.
The site was modern and well-designed—attractive and easy to navigate, oozing confidence and success. The owner had no doubt paid handsomely for the design, setup, and maintenance. It was a lovely job. She prayed that someday she’d be talented enough to design something like this.
It was not a site for a sex toy manufacturer.
Some clicking around on the various navigation tabs led to the discovery that Des and his co-president, Gabriel, had been running Calogistics for seven years and had been responsible for “facilitating some of Southern California’s most influential business and real estate acquisition deals.” They were in the business of buying businesses, like the one Cami worked for.
But what would anybody want with one little adult toy store? Sure, it was popular, but not enough to attract attention. And one storefront in an entire plaza had to be useless from a real estate point of view.
She crammed her feet into a pair of beat-up sneakers that rested on a mat near the entrance, locked the door behind her, and ran to the convenience store where she made all her junk food purchases. Rodger was behind the counter, as he oftenwas. She held up her phone to show Des’s headshot from the Calogistics website.
Rodger nodded. “Des? Sure. Nice guy. He’s helping us sell the store to some bigshot in Toronto. Everyone else in the plaza, too, I think. Didn’t Lenny tell you?”
Cami would add this to the long list of things Lenny Seaver had not told her.
