“Which is part of its charm.” Brenda nodded and grinned. “What about the rest of you? Audrey? Claudia?”
“I haven’t yet, but I am not watching that with my grandmother.” Audrey got to her feet, glaring at the grandmother in question.
“Better get snappy on watching it, or you will be.” Brenda snapped her fingers. “I can’t spend time with you if you don’t know where the cottage is.”
“I’ll watch it with you, without your grandmother,” Claudia told Audrey, shooting Brenda a look. The older woman smirked and pointed fingers guns at Claudia, who shook her head. “But right now, I want to hear about how Yasmine ended up with a dog. Let’s all go sit down, and we can play something easy while you update us.”
“Sure.” Yasmine unclipped the leash from Hope’s collar.
A few minutes later, she had her drink for the evening, Hope was resting comfortably under the table, and she started the rundown of her Wednesday. With a lot of gasps and interruptions, it took her twice as long to get through the story as it did when she’d told Amara and Veronica. Mostly because Claudia kept chewing her out for going over to Sarah’s alone, then going back over to Sarah’s alone, and then not running when she heard the door opening and a man came in.
“Wait, his name was Zeus?” Claudia asked, frowning.
Ah, crap, that’s right. She’d meant to refer to him as the neighbor. It really was the same Zeus. Which made sense, but she hadn’t wanted to deal with Claudia’s reaction to knowing him if it was. Oops.
“Yes. I thought it sounded familiar, but I haven’t really been able to place it,” Yasmine said innocently. She hadn’t been sure after all.
“Tall, bald head, great beard, big dick energy?”
“Yeah, that sounds like him.”
“I love a man with fat-dick spirit,” Brenda chimed in, beaming at Audrey, who shot her a dirty look.
Claudia shook her head again. “That would be my co-worker.” Claudia crossed her arms over her chest. “How did you not pick up on that? It’s not exactly a common name.”
“I don’t know.” Yasmine shrugged. “I haven’t heard that much about him.”
“Didn’t Mason tell you about him?” Cassidy asked.
“No.” Yasmine made a face. “We mostly talked about the future. He wasn’t super forthcoming with things that were going on with him in the now. It was something I figured would eventually change, but…”
She didn’t look at Audrey, but she didn’t have to. Everyone knew why Yasmine and Mason hadn’t worked out.
“I’m so sorry,” Audrey blurted out automatically.
Yasmine shook her head, meeting Audrey’s gaze. Audrey had nothing to be sorry for. Neither she nor Mason had done anything wrong. It was what it was, and really, it was Yasmine’s fault.
“You have nothing to be sorry for; it is what it is.” Yasmine shrugged. “I should have known better than to try to circumvent the curse. Who cares anyway? So, Zeus works at Black Fox, so what?”
“Well, they don’t all completely trust him,” Cassidy said after a moment when Claudia didn’t answer. She was leaning back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, with a blank expression that suggested she was thinking something through. “David mostly does now, but even he’s not certain.”
“But why not?” Zeus hadn’t known who she was either; Yasmine was willing to swear to that. And he’d seemed like a really nice guy.
“He used to work for Devlin, although he quit before Devlin got fired. Lincoln hired him to be the team’s tech guy a few months ago. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but I think it’s been hard for him to fit in on the team. When he comes into the bakery, it’s never with someone from Black Fox.” Audrey shrugged.
Great. Of course, she knew what was going on with him, because Mason probably actually talked to her. To be fair, it could have also been Audrey’s brother who’d told her, but Yasmine would bet it was Mason. It just showed another difference between how he was with Audrey and how he’d been with Yasmine. She shouldn’t have tried to push a relationship that just wasn’t there. He sure as heck hadn’t confided in things with Yasmine. She couldn’t remember him ever mentioning Zeus; more likely, she’d heard his name from Claudia.
“I’m almost positive I told you about him,” Claudia said, confirming Yasmine’s suspicion.
“To be fair, I wasn’t super paying attention to your work stories,” Yasmine admitted, only a little abashed. “I was kinda busy trying to plan a wedding and then, you know, not. Don’t even think about apologizing, Audrey, or I swear I’ll get switchy and beat your butt.” She pointed her finger in Audrey’s direction. She didn’t need to look at the other woman to know that was exactly what Audrey had been about to do.
Audrey bit her lip and sat back in her seat.
“There’s nothing wrong with focusing on what’s important to you,” Brenda said with a nod. “Work drama is boring, anyway. Is this Zeus hot? I feel like he should be hot.”
“He’s hot,” Yasmine confirmed, at the same time as the other three, including Claudia, who shrugged when they all looked at her.
“He’s a Dom, but I’m not blind,” she said.
