“Hurry, Elvira, if you don’t, I’m breaking out the cookie dough,” I told her.
“Cookie dough is for heartbreak and sister trouble, why would you break out the cookie dough?” Tracy asked.
“Cookie dough has many functions. It isn’t just for heartbreak and sister trouble. It’s also for when you’re freaking out about your love life,” I replied.
“I’ll tell you this,” Elvira announced, fanning out little slices of French baton on the plate next to fanned out little slices of apple all surrounding a gleaming, clean bunch of succulent grapes in the middle, “Hawk put me on radar, watched my every move for a year and a half and activated the troops when I caught trouble, there’d be no cookie dough in sight. I’d be on my knees next to the bed prayin’ to the good Lord, thankin’ him ‘cause he heard my words. Then I’d put on my little teddy, the purple one, looks good against my skin, and I’d get in bed and count down the minutes until he got home.”
“I wear nightshirts to bed,” I informed her. “Though, I do have a sexy caftan.”
Elvira twisted her neck to look at me. “Saw that caftan, hon, in your laundry. It was pretty nice. But Hawk strikes me as a satin and lace man.”
Hmm. It appeared Elvira was thorough when she went through my stuff to pack my bags.
“Is he a satin and lace man?” Tracy asked.
“No, he’s a take it as it comes man,” I answered. Or, more accurately, take it off because it’s in the way man.
Elvira grinned huge. “Mm hmm.”
I looked at Cam. “Camille. Cosmo.”
Cam lifted the stainless steel pitcher and started shaking.
“All right, I’m just gonna say things might have started out a bit slow,” Trace began with a screaming understatement, “but sometimes it takes men a little while, you know, to understand they want commitment.”
“Tell me about it,” Camille muttered, yanked off the top of the martini shaker and started pouring.
I bit the side of my lip and slid my eyes to Tracy.
Then I said, “Leo’s committed to you.”
“Unh-hunh,” Cam kept pouring.
“He totally loves you,” Tracy put in.
“Mm,” Cam mumbled, putting down the shaker and starting to hand glasses around.
“You got a man with commitment troubles, girl?” Elvira asked, plopping the wedge of pâté in the middle of some fanned out crackers.
“Five years together, four in the same house,” Camille answered.
“Oh boy,” Elvira muttered, using the breadknife to attack the wrap on the brie.
“I see good things, I see them soon, I feel it in my bones,” I quickly announced, taking my cosmo. “He’s close, Cam, I know it.”
“I know it too!” Trace added but Elvira was looking at me.
Then she looked at Cam. “I read people,” she stated, lifting the breadknife to her face and circling the blade an inch away from her skin as I held my breath. “Faces. They tell no lies. Like that TV show. I got the gift. And your girl here, she tells no lies. I ain’t one to blow sunshine, seein’ as I’ve known my share of commitment-phobes, so many I could write the Denver Directory of Commitment-Phobes, but she sees good things, she feels it in her bones, she’s your girl, she’s tellin’ no lies which means,” she stuck the breadknife in Cam’s face, “you give this boy some time.”
After Elvira laid down the law and Cam was staring at the knifepoint two inches from her face, I reached out, wrapped my hand around Elvira’s wrist and pulled her hand and the knife down. When I did, her eyes swung to me.
“Hawk has a rule about proper usage of knives in his house,” I muttered.
“I bet he does,” Elvira replied. “He got a rule about the proper usage of ninja stars?”
“Probably,” I muttered because this was actually probably true.
“Can I have a cosmo?” Trace asked and Cam finished handing them out.