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They dropped hands and Wilma stepped back with an eyebrow raised. “Um, yes. That’s usually how it works.”
The mother and bride cleared their voices simultaneously. “Um, these are...” Crap, although they’d both given her their names, Tasha couldn’t remember them. The day had been trying to say the lease.
Luckily, the mother stepped forward and instead of an outstretched hand, she went in for a hug. “I’m Joan and any friend of Tasha’s is a friend of mine. We adore her little boutique. We could’ve gone to a much larger shop but as I told my daughter, Jessica here, we needed to support more small African American businesses.”
Jessica groaned and slapped a hand across her face.
The door alarm chimed again as two women breezed through, eyes on the hot trio.
“Oh, this is such a nice store,” one said, gaze hyper-focused on Solgre.
The other pretended to look around but her gaze quickly landed on Kien and stayed there. “Yes, yes. This is a cute place.”
“Excuse me while I see to the new visitors,” Tasha said, happy for the distraction.
When she reached the newcomers, smile on her face and hand extended in greeting, they didn’t pay her any attention. Their paths led directly to where Phate, Kien and Solgre stood.
“Hello. Do you come here often?” the redhead asked Solgre, thrusting her prominent bust up toward his gaze.
“We’re new to town,” Solgre grumbled.
With a lopsided grin on his face, Kien seemed too happy to be the center of attention while Solgre seemed uneasy about it. As if he were afraid of being caught off-guard, Solgre’s gaze darted from the door to the large, picturesque window and back to the door.
The redhead repositioned herself in Solgre’s line of vision. He stepped to the side so she wasn’t blocking him and the exit. The redhead sent a defeated look to her dark-haired friend.
“But we can come here often if this is where we should be spending our time,” Kien offered.
Both women perked up and giggled to each other.
Uh, no. Tasha didn’t need these three disrupting her place of business. It would be pure chaos if the five giggling women in her presence were any indication. They acted as if they’d never seen attractive men before. Even Wilma stopped paying attention to Tasha and gazed longingly into Solgre’s eyes like a lost puppy.
“Oh! Are you on any of the dating apps?” the redhead asked.
“Dating app?” Solgre asked with a frown.
“Excuse us,” Kien said. “We’re not from here. What is an app?”
“It’s what single people use to meet, hook up and date each other,” Jessica said. “It’s how my husband and I met.”
“I thought we were never going to tell anyone how you two met,” Joan sang to her daughter.
Hearing the description of what a dating app was drew Phate’s attention from Tasha. She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but the loss of his gaze left her suddenly bereft. Her eyes narrowed on the fawning women. To her surprise, an unexpected spike of jealousy hit her.
She wasn’t confident enough to believe she had more to offer than these other women. As far as looks were concerned, she was average at best. Nisha was an avid dating app user and she’d showed Tasha a slew of photos with the most gorgeous women available and searching for men. There was no way she could compete with some of them.
Jessica rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with dating apps, mom. Using technology to determine if two people are compatible takes a lot of the second guessing out and helps to weed out the weirdos.”
“It sounds like what the IDA uses,” Phate said to Solgre.
“Hm, definitely something to consider,” Solgre responded.
She was about to ask them what IDA stood for and if it was a new dating app, but at the moment Kien turned a dazzling smile on the two newcomers, and they immediately broke down into another round of giggles. Tasha rolled her eyes at the display of teenage antics from obviously grown women.
“Are you both on dating apps?” Kien asked the women.
They nodded.
“But we can bypass that and go out on a date,” the redhead offered.
