“Thank fuck,” Hunter sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “I was really considering how to kill you without Derek finding out.”
“That’s not to say that I didn’t have any fun with her,” he grinned. “There was some definite hair pulling and-“
He didn’t have time to finish his sentence because Hunter was across the room and slamming his fist into Joe’s face before any of us could react. Well, Derek just sat there, drinking his beer, obviously unconcerned about the situation. It took Eric, Will, Andrew, and I to pull Hunter off Joe. When Joe stood and wiped the blood from his face, he glared at Derek.
“Thanks for the help, man.”
Derek shrugged. “I told you when you came to visit, you don’t punch someone to say hello. Same principle applies here. You don’t brag about getting head from another guy’s girl.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t pull my gun.”
“Shit, you weren’t even together at the time,” Joe muttered.
“I can still pull out my gun if you want to see how good my aim is. I’ll even give you a running head start.”
“Alright, alright,” I stood, waving everyone down. “Let’s stop talking about killing people. Attorney-client privilege only applies to one person in the situation. I can’t defend both of you.”
“Why would you defend him?” Joe asked.
I looked at him like he was stupid. “Because he’s got the gun, you moron.”
“Thanks for the brotherly love,” he muttered.
“If we’re finished with the threats, maybe we should get back to the topic at hand,” Derek suggested. “I have an idea and if we pull this off, everything should work out perfectly for you.”
Robert
I glanced at my watch and sighed. I was supposed to be helping Anna move right now, but she wasn’t answering my calls. If I didn’t make this up to her this weekend, there wouldn’t be another chance until next weekend. And by then it might be too late. I needed something now.
“Alright,” Derek said, laying out the large paper on the kitchen table. “If we’re going to do this right, we need a solid plan. So, phase one…”
He wrote out phase one on the paper and drew a line under it. I shook my head, thinking this was slightly dramatic for apologizing to my girlfriend.
“You said Anna arrives at the office every day at precisely seven forty-five,” he said to Eric.
“That’s right. She’s always the first one in the office.”
“We need to know her daily habits, anything that we can use in our favor. Favorite drinks, lunch preferences, even what time she uses the bathroom,” Hunter said.
“Are you serious? The bathroom?” I shook my head. This was going too far. “Look, I’ll just bring her some flowers and apologize.”
“And that might work. This time,” Derek said. “But what about once you leave and Corduroy is still around, whispering in her ear? You need something better, something to ensure that he doesn’t enter the picture again.”
“She stops at the bakery every morning for coffee and babka,” Eric said. “Unless I’ve done something to piss her off.”
“Have you pissed her off lately?” Hunter asked.
“No, that honor was left to my brother,” he said, slapping me on the back.
“Okay, so she stops in the bakery every morning,” Derek wrote on the paper. “What time?”
“It’s just a short drive to the office,” Eric said thoughtfully. “Allowing ten minutes to grab her coffee-“
“Ten minutes?” Hunter asked. “Are you sure about that?”
“You’d understand if you ever stood in line at the bakery,” I supplied. “The townsfolk are very chatty.”
“So, ten minutes, we’ll say she arrives at the bakery at seven-thirty to be safe. That allows her plenty of time to grab her food and chat up the locals.”
“The sheriff usually grabs his morning coffee around that time also,” Eric added. “I’ve seen Corduroy with him a few times.”
“Question,” Joe said, raising his hand. “Do the rest of us really have to be here for this?”
“Yes,” Derek snapped. “To pull this off, it’ll take all of us.”
Joe and Andrew groaned and Will pulled out a chair to sit down.
“Alright, she takes her lunch break at noon for one hour, but she’s always back in twenty minutes,” Eric said. “She grabs her lunch at the deli down the street, and she always eats at her desk while she goes through emails.”
“How do you know so much if you’re always out on jobs?” I asked, thinking maybe he knew a little too much about her day.