Page 43 of Hale Yes
Glancing toward the front of the restaurant, I see Vicente grinning at me. The fucker.
Helix: She’s not my girlfriend. She’s the new lab manager.
X-Chromosome: Great! I want to meet your new “lab manager.” Bring her to lunch one day.
Helix: We don’t eat lunch together. This was a one-time thing, so don’t start, Mom.
X-Chromosome: You really shouldn’t make your “lab manager” eat alone.
Helix: Stop with the quotation marks. I’ve gotta go. Love you.
X-Chromosome: Love you too, sweetheart. I look forward to meeting your “lab manager.”
For fuck’s sake. Houston is one of the largest cities in the nation, but sometimes it feels like a tiny little town with the way gossip spreads. I shake my head and put my phone away.
Thank you for dinner. This place was amazing,” Nicolette tells me as I guide her out the side door to the parking lot. She stifles a yawn as I open the car door for her. “I’ll have to tell Cruz thatother restaurant he recommended is closed, but I bet he’ll love The Tapas Table.”
My curiosity heats the back of my neck as I walk around and slide into the driver’s side. “Who is Cruz?” I ask, but there’s no answer.
Because Nicolette Bell is fast asleep in the soft leather seat of my Bugatti.
I pull into the driveway behind Nicolette’s townhome. We discussed this at dinner, and she told me which street she lived on and that hers was the blue one. Just to be certain, I hop out and peer through the window on the garage door to find her Audi safely tucked inside.
Going back to my car, I pull open her door and squat down. “Nicolette, you’re home.” She doesn’t respond, so I shake her gently. “Nicolette, can you wake up for me?”
Absolutely no response… unless you count the loud snore she emits. Hells bells, she wasn’t kidding about wine knocking her out. I try three more times to awaken her before finally deciding, fuck it, I’ll just carry her inside.
Tentatively, I pick up the small bag in her lap and unsnap it. This makes me extremely uncomfortable. My mother taught me to never go through a woman’s purse after she caught Phoenix and I stuffing her tampons into our Nerf guns and shooting each other when we were seven. But I really don’t have much choice. She’s not waking up, and I can’t exactly leave her in the driveway.
Luck is on my side when I see her keys directly on top. Pulling them out, I search them in the glow of the car’s overhead light, finally finding one labeled BD. I can only assume thatmeans back door. I jog over, and sure enough, the key unlocks the door on the side of the garage.
Once I have Nicolette unbuckled and in my arms, I bump the car door closed with my hip. Then I almost scream when I turn around and find…
“Is that a goose?”
“No,” an unamused voice says, “it’s a Rottweiler.”
He steps fully into the light, and I see a blond man wearing a baby-pink bathrobe with boa feathers around the neck. He is indeed holding a goose in one arm with a .44 Magnum in the other hand. And the handgun is pointed directly at me.
Well this isn’t ideal.
“Look buddy,” I say in my calmest voice. “I don’t want any trouble. Just back away, okay?”
He doesn’t budge. “If you don’t want any trouble, why do you have an unconscious Nicolette in a dark alley?”
“You know her?” I’m not sure, but I think this is good news. At least he’s not some stranger roaming the streets with a goose and a gun, though that wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing you’d see if we were in the Sunnyside neighborhood.
The man scoffs. “Of course I know her. She’s my neighbor and my friend. And who are you?”
“I’m Helix Hale, her boss. We had dinner and drinks, and she fell asleep as soon as we got into the car.”
His head tilts in what feels like an accusation, but his gun hand never wavers. “Did you feed her wine? She gets terribly sleepy after drinking wine.”
“I’m aware,” I say dryly, hefting her body up to readjust her in my arms. She’s not big, but I am holding a whole-ass person right now. Something niggles my brain, and I ask, “Are you Cruz?”
The man semi-recoils. “No, Cruz lives in New York. He’s Nicolette’s best friend’s husband.”
His last three words relax my spine a bit, like I’ve been shot with a tranquilizer dart. Though I’m not sure relaxation is exactly what I should be going for right nowbecause there’s still a goddamn gun pointed at me.
