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“Nothing my butt,” said the bearcat as she and Havana caught up with Bailey. Aspen was the only one not pushing a cart, not needing help to carry a mere loaf of bread. “Why be so secretive?”
“Why be so insistent I share stuff? There are things you don’t tell me,” Bailey pointed out.
Aspen flipped a hand. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“It just is. Give up the goods.”
“Fine.” Bailey paused. “I’m thinking of taking up crocheting.”
“Bailey.”
“What? It’s true.”
“Come on,” Havana cut in, absently fiddling with the foot of the skeleton she still held. “We share things with you.”
“Not everything,” Bailey reminded her. “You both have stuff you only talk about with your mates. Do you ever hear me pushing for you to spill it all?”
Havana nodded. “Yes.”
“All the time,” replied Aspen.
“Your nosy questions are never-ending,” Havana added.
Bailey frowned, perching a hand on her hip. “I haven’t asked either of you a nosy question today.”
Aspen shot her a look of disbelief. “Asking if I own a butt plug isn’t nosy?”
“You think it is?” Bailey pursed her lips. “Huh. Weird.”
“No, it isn’t,” the bearcat clipped. “God, would you just put us out of our misery?”
“What, like, shoot you behind a shed?”
Aspen fisted her hands. “Tell us what you’re hiding.”
“A body.”
Aspen threw up her arms. “I can’t with you.”
“I’m not hiding anything.” Bailey just wasn’t telling them everything. That was totally different.
Turning to the shelf beside her, Bailey grabbed a vanilla pumpkin-scented candle and gave it a sniff. Her sense of smell was acute enough that the candle’s scent momentarily drowned out the store’s smells of pine cleaner, fresh bread, and the warm foods being cooked at the small takeout counter.
“We’ll find out what it is eventually,” Havana warned. “And if it turns out you’re doing work for Cesário on the side …”
Her brow creasing at the mention of their old boss from the Movement, Bailey glanced at her. “We retired, remember?”
Havana pointed the skeleton’s arm at Bailey. “Don’t think I don’t know he calls and offers you the occasional job—ones that only you’d be crazy enough to take.”
“He does not do that.” Much. “I’d say no if he did. I adore Cessy and all, but retired means retired.”
“You know he hates that nickname.”
“Yes, I do know.” It was exactly why Bailey used it. She returned the candle to the shelf. “Now … are you going to buy that skeleton or keep feeling it up like a weirdo?”
Havana frowned. “I’m not—We aren’t changing the subject, Bailey.”
“Don’t tell me you’re curious about bedding a corpse. There’s a name for kinks like that, you know.”
“Bailey, don’t make me hurt you.”
“Does Tate know you’re into that? Ooh, do you have him pretend to be dead and stuff when you guys are getting it on?”
Havana’s mouth tightened. “Do you have to be so inappropriate?”
“Inappropriate? I’m not the one violating a plastic skeleton.”
“I’m not violating it!”
A male sigh drifted their way, edged with humor. “I see you’re at it again,” said Shay as he materialized beside Bailey.
She felt her brows meet. “At what?” Her inner snake roused slightly at the sight of him. The serpent liked him, but she’d never viewed him as a potential partner, only a temporary bedmate.
“Provoking the people around you,” he elaborated, his eyes dancing. “It’s like you can’t help yourself. Or don’t want to.” He tilted his head slightly. “I’m thinking it’s probably the latter.”
“Is that why you dumped me and left me heartbroken?”
His lips twitching into a smile, he rolled his eyes. “I didn’t dump you. We mutually agreed to move on. And you weren’t heartbroken. You weren’t anything. For all the emotion you showed, we might as well have been discussing whether to do the dishes then or later.”
The same could be said for him. Which hadn’t bothered her, because he was right—she hadn’t cared. “Maybe I was hiding my heartbreak.”
Shay snorted. “The only thing you were hiding was that you have the hots for Deke, but I see all.” All smirky and shit, he nudged her. “Why haven’t you jumped him yet?”
“I don’t like to ambush and rob people.”
Havana threw up a hand. “First of all, that’s a lie. Second of all, it’s not what he meant, and you know it.”
Bailey bristled. “Excuse me, I’m no thief.”
“You stole my wristwatch,” said Shay, still smiling.
“No, you gave it to me,” Bailey insisted. “You called it a parting gift.”
His brow knitted, but his smile didn’t fade. “Why would I give you my watch for any reason?”
“So I can always know the time obviously.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
Aspen gave him a look of understanding. “Irritating, isn’t it?”
He nodded, his eyes still twinkling with mirth. “Kind of, yes.”
Bailey folded her arms. “Is that why you broke my heart?”
Another eye roll. “You were not heartbroken.” Hearing his cell ring, he fished it out of his pocket as he said, “Do both you and Deke a favor, Bailey, and go jump his bones—by holding off on it, you’re only delaying the inevitable.” With that, he strode off as he answered his call.
