Page 61 of Hey, Daddy

Dima.

Damn, I’d forgotten about him.

Also, shit.

I glanced to the side and saw Dima staring at the two of us curiously.

“Dima,” I said quickly. “This is Haze.”

“Haze, as in Detective Haze Hopkins with the Fort Worth Police Department who has been following my sister around for the last month because he thinks she had something to do with a murder?” Dima asked, clarifying it all.

“That’s me.” Haze paused. “Not that I agree with the reason for following her around.”

“But you’re still doing it,” he pointed out.

“For now,” Haze admitted, turning so that I was standing against him, my side to his front.

“For now,” he mused, his eyes bouncing from me to Haze and back. “What exactly is going on here?”

“What’s going on is none of your business,” I indicated. “Just let me explore without you putting your nose into it.”

“I feel like maybe you’re asking a lot of Shasha and me without giving us any of the assurance that a normal person would need to make them feel better about you possibly dating the man who’s had you under surveillance for the last thirty days,” Dima pointed out.

“What kind of assurances do you want?” Haze asked, likely agreeing with Dima’s high-handed alpha maleness.

“How about you tell me what’s going on in the investigation?” Dima suggested.

Haze grinned and gestured toward me. “Are you buying that, Mama?”

His eyes trailed down to the shirt I was holding, and he shook his head.

Dima saw the shirt, then looked from me to Haze again, this time with his lip curled like he wanted to throw up.

I didn’t say anything, and neither did Haze.

Dima sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not sure I like this.”

We both ignored him, and I said, “I have to go buy something, get one final test on how they treat me to give to the store owner, and then we can maybe go grab lunch.”

“Make it at Jack’s, and I can explain some,” Haze interjected.

I left them to figure out where we were going and headed to the cash register.

Since the girls had already started acting gross before I’d gotten here, I decided it would be way easier to video call the owner to save myself the explanation later.

She answered when I was about halfway to the counter, and I explained what I was doing.

She was silent as I tucked the phone into the front of my pants and then laid all the goodies I’d found on the counter.

Neither woman acknowledged me.

“Um, excuse me.” I smiled, hoping that would get them to look.

They didn’t.

“Hello?” I asked. “I’m ready to check out.”

Still nothing.

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