What's Life Without the Sprinkles - By Misty Simon Page 0,63
appointment on Monday, and she’s not doing so well. Mom is having fits, and I’ve been on the phone day and night with her, talking about nursing homes.”
“That must have been fun. I bet Stelle is not liking that at all.” Nate’s grandma was stubborn to a fault, and she had always said she would die before she went to one of those “old folks’ homes.”
Claudia knew she should be relieved that he’d been preoccupied and not completely avoiding her, but they had always talked about this kind of thing. Normally, she’d have been the first one he called—before all that mess this weekend. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Do you have a muzzle? Or two?”
“The only one I have I’m using on Justin lately.” The rhythm of their conversation was slowly resuming its normal pace. She did not want to lose this connection, regardless of what did or did not happen in the bedroom department. “It must be a ‘fits-having’ kind of couple of days.”
“They aren’t the only females giving me fits right now, either.” There was another pause and another throat clearing. “Do you have time today, Claudia? I think we should talk. Face to face would be better.”
Why? So he could turn down her cake offer to her face? Not going to happen if she could help it. The build-out on Decadence could wait until this all quietly faded away. “Uh, no. I don’t think I have time at all today, and probably not for the next week or so. But we should definitely set up a time to go over the plans. Or you can meet with Zoe another day. I’m sure she can handle it all without a problem.” Her pulse was frantic, her heart bumping into her breastbone to the point she was afraid it would be on the table any minute now.
“Now who’s avoiding?”
“I am,” she said and hung up before he could say another word.
Of course that wasn’t the end of it, and Claudia knew it. The other shoe would drop at some point. In the meantime, she had a shop to run.
Downstairs, Claudia opened a new box of supplies that had arrived that morning, poking around inside to see what kind of fun new cake decorators had come her way. Nothing but those Styrofoam peanuts, yet, but she had hope her new professional-grade rind grater was somewhere in all the packing material.
Zoe slouched against the counter. She kept peeking out into the front of the store as if expecting something, or someone, to come through the door. She swiped her hair off her forehead and blew out a breath. “I really think that someone else should handle the lawyer thing. I don’t know what Uncle Al was thinking, but if he won’t deal with me, then I’m not dealing with Dex.”
“Well, that sucks for you. You’re the only one who has time to do this right now, and we want to make sure we have all our ducks in a row before we move forward with making May a partner. I don’t want our butts hanging out in the wind with legalities.” She knew the grater was in here somewhere. Why did they always have to pack everything like the deliveryman was going to drop-kick it through her door?
“Right. You’re so busy, what with avoiding Nate now that you’ve finally figured out that he is super sexy. I heard Justin caught you all over each other. I hope you’re not planning to break in the living room floor, since I think that’s already been done.”
Claudia looked up quickly to find Zoe with a smug smile on her face. “I don’t even want to know what it is you’re alluding to. I’m trying to find my grater, and I can’t be distracted by your dirty birdy mind.”
Zoe nudged her shoulder, dipped her hand into the white peanuts, and came out with the grater. “Oh, come on. Like you’ve thought completely pure thoughts since you decided to run out and grab you a piece of Nate.” She handed the shiny new device over to Claudia, who hummed long and low at the back of her throat.
The hum could have been for the grater or for thoughts of Nate, but she wasn’t going to tell Zoe which one. She’d simply avoid that particular conversation all together. “So how about this new guy from Sunday night?”
Zoe was obviously willing to be distracted back to her own life. “He definitely has stallion potential. I