Page 30 of All Yours

She laughed. “Wonder how long that would take to get around town?”

“I’m guessing the news would win a race against a fighter jet.”

“That sonic boom you heard was not me exploding, but the news traveling through town,” she grinned.

“In my mind, the sound of you exploding would be like the cork coming out of a champagne bottle.”

Sloane’s mouth dropped open, and she laughed. “Shut up.” She threw a chunk of bread across the table at me.

“Hey, this is a nice place,” I whispered an admonishment. “Have some manners.” I threw the piece of bread back at her. It bounced off her boob and onto the floor.

“Now look what you did,” she whispered, giggling. “You’re making a mess in this fancy place.”

“You threw it first.”

“Then why did you throw it back?”

“We all know I don’t have any manners. I assumed you did.”

“Clearly, you were mistaken.” She stuck her foot out and pushed the chunk of bread underneath our table. “There, no one will see it until we’re gone.”

I grinned and drained my beer.

“You’re still coming to the Halloween party at Lou’s, right?” Sloane slouched back in the chair.

“Yeah.”

“You’re wearing a costume this year, right?”

“I’m dressing up as a contractor.”

Sloane paused with the wine glass halfway to her mouth and sighed, shaking her head.

“What?” I asked, with my best innocent face.

“That’s a bit on the nose. Don’t ya think?” She rolled her eyes.

“Fine. I’ll think of something else.”

“I can help,” she offered.

“No, I got this.”

“It’ll be fun,” she said, swirling the remaining bit of wine around her glass.

“Speaking of fun,” I said, “you want to come to the Pennington Christmas party with me?”

“Isn’t that a work event?”

“It’s a social event where we get to watch Camden artfully avoid Mrs. Pennington.”

“As fun as it sounds, I’ve been avoiding those kinds of situations. They’re the people who will want to talk about tennis.”

“I doubt it. Most of them are the same people around town. And no one bothers you. It will be fun, and you’ll help me out, too.”

She considered it for a moment and drained her wine glass. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I don’t know how fun a stuffy old lady Christmas party will be.”

“Great. Besides, we can make it fun.” I tossed another chunk of bread across the table at her.

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