Page 72 of Men or Paws
Holly pointed to my phone. “You need to stall him, so we have more time to find him. Tell him you can’t connect at the moment.”
“I can’t say that without giving him an excuse and I don’t have a legitimate one. I don’t want to lie.”
Holly nodded, thinking about it. “Got it. Tell him you’re a little indisposed.”
I stared at Holly. “Indisposed? What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. Some woman said it on a soap opera they had on at the nail salon while I was getting a pedicure. It sounded very dramatic.”
I shook my head in frustration. “I’m not sure he’d buy that, and I don’t want him to start worrying about me because I lied.”
“Little white lies never hurt anybody.”
“Not going to do it.”
“Tell him something vague then.”
“That’s a great idea,” I nodded, tapping my reply to Rocco.
Me: I’m in the middle of something at the moment. Can we connect later?
It was the truth, although Rocco wouldn’t like the fact that his dog sitter was in the middle of trying to find the dog she was paid to take care of.
I waited impatiently for his reply.
Please say yes.
Rocco: I can’t connect later. I’m meeting the director and a couple of the producers for drinks soon. We can make it quick. I just sent you the Zoom link.
I sighed and showed the text to Holly. “Now what? Technically, he’s my boss, so I can’t really say no at this point. He’ll get suspicious.”
“Relax,” Holly said. “Just connect with him for a minute to say hello. Tell him Houdini is taking a nap on the other side of the house or something like that, then hang up on him in the middle of a sentence. You can apologize a minute later with a text, telling him that you seem to be having connection issues or that your battery is dying.”
“I told you, I won’t lie to him,” I said.
“How about if I unplug the router in the middle of your call so you lose your Internet connection? It won’t actually be a lie that way.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” I said. “What if we can’t reconnect it later?”
Holly threw her hands up in the air. “Well then, you’re on your own. My diabolical tendencies only run so deep.”
I was surprised she made me smile with that, considering how stressed out I was.
Maybe, deep down, I knew everything would be okay.
I set the laptop on the kitchen counter with the family room as my background. I quickly tucked some wild hairs behind my ear and put on my best fake smile.
“Here we go,” I said, clicking on the Zoom link to connect. “Stay over there in that area with Sage.” I pointed toward the refrigerator. “It’s better if you’re off camera, so I won’t have to explain why you’re here.”
Holly frowned and took a few steps toward the refrigerator. “You’re not allowed to have friends?”
“Yes, but Rocco didn’t approve bring-friends-to-work day.”
“Well, he should. Do you want me to talk with him? You know how convincing I can be, plus I need to see that sexy face for myself.”
My finger to my lips, I shushed her.
“Already telling me to be quiet?” Rocco said, suddenly appearing on my laptop from inside his hotel room. “At least give me a chance to stick my foot in my mouth.”
