Page 48 of Dev Girl

“Spank me, Daddy?” Maddox’s voice rose an octave.

Before I could come up with any sort of reply, Adam shook his head. “Not sure if we can say that on the internet.” He didn’t sound remotely serious.

“It’s the internet.” Maddox let out the heaviest of heavy sighs. “Pretty sure we’re allowed to say anything except nipples.”

Adam huffed. “Damn it. You just said it.”

“You can beep him, right? You’ll edit this later?” This was ludicrous. I loved it.

Maddox’s grin was broad. “Can you imagine if there was a loud beep sound every time one of us said nip—”

Adam made an obnoxious honking noise.

“I want to try. Nip—”

Adam beeped out Alys, too. “Female nipples are evil,” he said. “You can’t just go around talking about them like no one is going to notice.”

“Right. I forgot about how evil my…” Alys searched our faces. “…lady buttons are.”

“Are we going to talk about rejected album covers, or has the focus of this episode shifted?” Not that I minded, but the grease paint was starting to itch.

Adam shook his head. “We don’t do that here.”

“Do what?” I was confused.

“Focus.” Maddox offered. “We don’t focus here. That’s for other people.”

And we proved exactly that over the next hour or so of rambling thoughts and eternal tangents that were mostly driven by Maddox and Adam.

After we wound down and wrapped up, Maddox and Adam worked on packing up the gear, and Alys helped me peel off my skull cap. Finally.

I headed into the back bathroom to wash off the paint. Scrubbing my face had never felt so satisfying, even if the sink was now tinged a pale blue.

As I was wandering out to join the others, my phone rang with a call from my real estate agent, Helen. A glance around the room told me it was empty, but who knew when someone would wander back in. “Hello.” As I answered, I headed into my office.

“Afternoon. How’s it going?”

As much as I was okay with little bursts of small talk, I didn’t need to stretch this conversation out with Alys and Maddox around. “Great. What can I do for you?”

“We may have a small hiccup.”

Fuck. “How small?” Or rather, how large?

“The buyer isn’t happy with the private inspector’s results.”

Of course that would come back to bite me in the ass. Instead of sitting I paced the room. “The contract isn’t contingent on a personal inspector.”

“He can still walk away from the sale, it just costs him a little.”

I bit back my growl. “He knew he was buying a more than hundred year old building. The wiring is all up to code, and so is everything else. This is bullshit.”

Helen sighed. “Whatever it is, he’s still allowed to do it.”

“Great. There’s no law against being an asshole either, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” I raked my fingers through still stiff hair. “I want to cover my bases. If he decides not to buy, can we go back to another offer and see if they’re still interested?”

“We can. I don’t know if it’ll work.”

“I’m not the only one who’s fucked if I can’t sell. You don’t get your commission either.” Not that I needed to remind her of that. As I turned, my heart stopped at the sight of Alys standing in my office doorway, watching me with a blank expression. “I need to call you back.” I disconnected without waiting for an answer.

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