Page 59 of Happily Never After

“Excellent. See you later.” Brad had already swiveled his chair back to his bank of computer monitors before Mindy and Claire left the room.

They both exhaled loudly as the office door shut behind them.

“So now we have to find a white horse, swap the appetizersagain, ask the a cappella group to do a medley instead of the original song, and find a violinist to put in the hedge maze at the Getty,” Mindy whispered as she leaned against the door.

“I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off,” Claire whispered back. Dread had settled in her stomach. Was it too much? Had they finally gone too big on a proposal? And out of their comfort zone of West Haven? A rookie mistake.

“That reminds me.” Claire straightened and walked over to the reception desk. “Hi,” she said with added charm. “Brad told us to schedule another meeting in another few days. I think he said toward the end of the day.”

The receptionist blinked at them. Her feet were propped up on the desk, and the glow necklace and neon green tights she wore suggested she had come straight to work from an all-night rave. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. Claire hadn’t been to a rave in years. Was she getting old?

“Mr. Lux doesn’t like meetings at the end of his day,” the receptionist drawled in a near-perfect valley girl accent. She blew a strand of pink hair out of her eyes as she typed. “He usually goes to the gym after work. Doesn’t like the stress beforehand.”

“My mistake. Give us a call when he’s ready to schedule,” she said, stepping away from the desk with another smile.

A security guard opened a door for them. Outside it was, of course, perfect weather. Claire lifted her face to the sunshine and drank in the Vitamin D. The traffic in LA might have been ten times at stressful as West Haven. But there was something magical about the sun on the West Coast.

Mindy nudged her. “You know he wanted to meet in the morning. Did you have an aneurysm?”

“Oh, I know,” Claire said, brushing a dog hair off her blouse. “I just wanted to see what his schedule was like after work. Because we’re going to follow him to the gym and make sure he’s not a serial killer or creep before we get too deep on this proposal. Can’t be too careful.”

Mindy shook a finger at her. “You, my best friend, are incredibly wise.”

“Thank you.” She took a mini bow. “So we’ll pick a day to stake out the studio, wait for him to leave, and see where he goes. If he really does go to the gym, we’ll sneak in and see if he mistreats anyone there. I refuse to plan a beautiful proposal for another garbage human being.”

“I didn’t get that vibe from him,” Mindy said as they walked toward the parking lot.

“Same,” Claire admitted as they passed a gazebo that was in several of her favorite TV shows. “But I didn’t get it from Barney either.”

“Good point.” Mindy glanced at her phone. “By the way, are you okay?”

Claire crossed her arms. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve never heard you talk back to a client before. I almost fell off my chair.”

She waved it off. “I’m fine. Just tired. New house and all that. I think the sleep deprivation lowered my bullshit-tolerance meter. It won’t happen again.”

“Sounds like it’s time to set up a cot in front of your bedroom door again.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Mindy grunted noncommittally and stared at her phone screen. “Not a single message from Sawyer. It’s one o’clock there.”

“Doesn’t he have a class on Tuesday mornings?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mindy grumbled and tucked the phone away. “So when are you going to talk to Luke about the Olivia situation?”

“I don’t know. I feel like he’s going to come home late and not want to talk.”

“That or he’ll be excavating the backyard to install a koi pond,” Mindy muttered. Luke’s penchant for working on house projects when he was stressed out was endearing. Most of the time.

“She was throwing herself at him, right? I didn’t imagine that?”

“Please.” Mindy pressed the unlock button. Fifty yards away, the car beeped. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if we rounded the corner and she was dry humping him.”

Claire snorted. “Want to find somewhere for lunch, send a couple of emails, and then scout the locations before we head home?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Mindy tossed her black hair over one shoulder as she approached the car.

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