Page 48 of Switched

“Well,” she says, as I sit down across from her. “I’ve decided to write a book.”

“Interesting. Where did that idea come from?”

“I was talking to my mother,” she says, picking up her teacup with both hands. “And while she harangued me about my choice of career, I realized I might just have it in me to write about murder.”

I laugh. “Let me guess. The book is about a lounge singer who murders her Mom?”

She takes a sip of her drink and puts the cup down. “Of course not. That would be too obvious. My mother would see right through it. And I’d never get away with the real murder if I wrote the book about it first.”

She taps her head with one finger.

“Well, that would make it harder to deny your involvement, I guess.”

The barista gives us a strange look as she places my coffee down in front of me.

Cleo’s dark sense of humor seems to make people nervous.

I think it’s the delivery. She never sounds like she’s joking.

“So, spill the tea,” she demands, as the server walks away. “How’s your plan going so far?”

“It’s been kind of strange,” I admit. “Was Scarlett seeing someone up until recently?”

“Hm,” she murmurs, sitting back in her seat. “No one that she spoke about, but she doesn’t always mention her entanglements. They’re usually a flash in the pan. She says that’s how she likes it, of course. That said, she did seem a bit subdued when she got back from her trip to the city.”

“She was in the city?” I ask.

“Work trip, apparently. I suppose she's had a few of those recently. This was the first time she came back acting like … well, unlike herself, I suppose.” She picks up her cup in both hands again.

“How long was she gone?”

“It was an overnight trip. She drove out there Wednesday afternoon, came back Thursday right before dinner.” She sips her tea.

“Was she supposed to be gone for longer?”

Cleo shrugs and sets her cup back down. “Scarlett does her own thing. She’s usually vague about details. Sometimes she changes her mind on a whim.”

She’s not wrong, and she knows Scarlett a lot better than I do.

“I’m sorry I don’t know anything useful,” she tells me. “But if she’s just been hurt by one of those idiot musicians’ she always goes crazy for, then maybe she’s finally ready for someone who’ll treat her better. Every cloud has a silver lining. This could be yours.”

Sighing, I nod. Despite not finding out anything useful, I feel a little better.

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get Scarlett to see us as her pack, and with her recent breakup it looks like we’ve got an even rockier path ahead of us now.

I can’t let that make me doubt that she’s ours.

True mates come along once in a lifetime.

We’ll do whatever it takes to show her we’re hers.

Chapter twenty-five

Sapphire

I go straight from the bathroom to the kitchen, heading for my sister’s ridiculously huge purse. It takes a fair amount of riffling around to lay my hands on her phone, and once I have it in my hand, I pause.

My emotions are a little raw right now, and I don’t want to be typing out an irritable text message to Scarlett only for Rueben to walk back into the room with his excitable energy and a baby cat in his hands.

---