doctoring,” Willa said.
“Nope,” Haley said, pulling off her lab coat. “The smoke and commotion drew me down here but I’m done for the day, thankfully. It was a busy one.”
“Spence come in for glasses yet?” Elle asked.
Haley bit her lower lip. “I saw him, yes.”
“And?” Elle asked. “His eyesight is bad, right?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t say,” Haley said. “Or HIPAA would drag me away in chains. He’ll have to tell you himself.”
Elle stared into her eyes and then smiled. “Yeah, he got glasses.”
“Damn,” Haley said. “I hate when you do that.”
“She reads minds,” Willa told Pru.
“Like magic?” Pru asked, awed.
“Not magic,” Elle said. “You all just wear your every single thought on your sleeves.”
“Oh, look at you, dear,” Mrs. Winslow said to Pru, coming up to her with a wide smile. “You look amazing.”
“Uh . . .” Pru looked down at herself. She was still in her usual work uniform of a stretchy white button-down and navy trousers and boots. “Thanks?”
“Must be all the sexual activity with Finn,” the older woman said. “Intercourse does wonders for your skin.”
Looking shocked, Willa nearly swallowed her tongue. She turned to Elle, who shrugged.
“You knew?” Willa asked.
“When are you going to get it? I always know,” Elle said.
Pru admired a woman who always had the answers. She really hoped Elle shared some of them because she could really use a few right about now.
“Burgers and hot dogs!” a guy yelled walking through the courtyard. It was Jay. He owned the food truck that usually sat out front, but now he had a tray strapped on him and was making sales left and right like he was going up and down the rows at a baseball stadium. “I’ve got beef burgers and six inches of prime sausages here! Get ’em while they’re hot!”
“Six inches would do me just right,” Mrs. Winslow said wistfully. “I wouldn’t know what to do with seven or eight.”
Try nine, Pru thought and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from saying it out loud.
“Something you want to share with the class?” Haley asked.
Most definitely not, but the vultures had the scent of roadkill and were circling.
“Oh, she’ll talk,” Elle said, staring into Pru’s eyes. “She’ll talk over a loaded pie and a bottle of wine. Girls, let’s hit it.”
And she walked off.
“She’s so badass,” Willa whispered, staring after her. “I mean look at that dress. She’s badass, kickass, and she has a great ass. It’s really not fair.”
“I can hear you,” Elle called out over her shoulder without looking back. She snapped her fingers. “Put it in gear.”
And Pru, Haley, and Willa followed after her like puppies on a leash.
Chapter 24
#SuitUp
Pru had no idea how Elle did it, but by the time they got to the street, there was an Uber ride waiting on them.
“Lefty’s Pizza,” Elle said to the driver.
“I thought you were on a diet,” Haley said, climbing into the car.
“Some days you eat salads and go to the gym,” Elle said. “And some days you eat pizza and wear yoga pants. It’s called balance.”
“I always eat pizza and wear yoga pants,” Willa said. She gasped. “Does that make me unbalanced?”
“No, actually, it makes you smarter than me,” Elle said with a small smile.
Willa sighed. “Or maybe I’ve just given up on men.”
“That’s only because you dated a few frogs,” Elle said.
“That’s an extremely nice way of saying that I’m a loser magnet. And I couldn’t get rid of that one frog either. I still owe Archer for stepping in and pretending to be my boyfriend so he’d back off.”
“That’s not why he backed off,” Elle said. “He backed off because Archer threatened to castrate him if he contacted you again.”
Willa gaped. “He did? I was wondering at how easy he made it look.”
“And you can make it look easy too,” Elle told her. “Next time you want to lose a guy, just tell them ‘I love you, I want to marry you, and I want children right away.’ They’ll run so fast they’ll leave skid marks.”
Willa snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Thirty minutes later they were in a booth, one bottle of wine down, another ready to go, and a large pizza on its way to being demolished. Pru’s stomach hurt, but that hadn’t slowed her down any.
Willa pulled a book from her purse. “Have either of you been to that new used bookstore down the street from our building?”
“I download my books right to my phone,” Elle said. “That way I can read while pretending