Page 5 of A Real Good Bad Thing

“Roger that,” he said.

“Say hi to Mom for me!” Cole called, and I waved him off with a smile before I took off for South Beach and parked in a nearby lot, then found our mother at her favorite fish taco joint on the main drag.

“You’re too tan, sweetheart,” Mom said when I reached her. “You need to wear sunscreen. Or a hat.” Her own wide-brimmed headgear was large enough to provide a landing pad for creatures from outer space.

“The tan is kind of an occupational hazard.” I sat in the empty stool next to her, then gestured to my getup—a green bikini covered by blue swim shorts and a loose tank. “I can slather myself with the stuff, but even then, the sun leaves its mark.”

“Slather yourself more,” she instructed, as if telling me to do my chores. But I was thirty-two, not twelve, and didn’t have to be told to clean my room. I kept it, and my condo, quite neat, thank you very much—even before I’d kicked out my ex.

“The mojito and virgin piña colada?” a waiter asked, two tempting drinks on his tray.

“I took the liberty of ordering in advance.” Mom touched my arm, then waved her hand in the air. “And the mojito’s for me, please.”

Once our drinks were placed on the table, Mom leaned closer then paused. “Hello,” she said, lowering her sunglasses and peering from under her floppy hat. “Incoming hotness at two o’clock,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth as a muscular man in board shorts and flip-flops strolled by.

“Mom,” I admonished.

“Not for me. For you. You deserve a little fun,” she urged. “Go say hello.”

Thanks but no thanks.“I don’t have time for romance. It’s distracting.”

She dropped a hand to my arm, squeezing gently. “But it can also be wonderful,” she said, ever the romantic, in spite of the screwing she got in her recent divorce and her ex’s cheating during their marriage. “Romance can be worth the trouble. And it’s been a year for you.”

One year, three months, and nine days.

“And it’s taken that long to rebuild my business and my life.” I was finally close to where I was before Duke slammed my professional reputation online after the breakup with negative review after negative review. My voice softened. “Which I couldn’t have done without your support, Mom.”

Mom waved away my gratitude. “I’d do anything for you, Ruby.”

My heart squeezed. She would. I knew that about her in a soul-deep way. Even though we saw each other a few days ago, we easily chatted about her chakras, and cute guys at her yoga class, and who was dating who until we were near the end of our drinks, but it seemed Mom wasn’t out of gossip.

“So, I heard from Andrew.” She stirred the mint at the bottom of her mojito glass. “One of Eli’s former business partners.”

The name was familiar. “Wasn’t he your old college friend? I did a dive tour for him some time back.”

Mom fiddled with the silvery necklace she’d made and looked away, embarrassed. “Right. I’d worried he’d hold it against me, that I’d introduced him to Eli. At the time, I knew Eli was looking for someone with Andrew’s skills and…”

And the rest was painful history, as it often goes with exes. And Eli was the worst of them. Shame that he’d been such a good stepdad for nearly two decades. He’d helped raise Cole and me after our father died when we were young, and had been like a father to us until he’d screwed Mom over in their divorce, after screwing someone else while they were married.

“Anyway,” Mom continued as if shaking off thoughts of her second husband, “Andrew has been trying to reach him, butapparently, he’s too busy to answer the phone, living it up in Flamingo Key with his new fiancée and his new club,Sapphire.” She breathed the name like it cost her something.

“Flamingo Key?” I asked because life was funny sometimes. “Where I’m headed for the tour?”

She nodded. “Yes. Where we used to go on vacation when you were little. And when you were a teenager too,” she said with a laugh. We’d spent a lot of time there, and I knew a lot of people there, still counted many friends on the island. She paused, perhaps for dramatic impact. “And there’s more. Andrew thinks Eli might have started the club with money he stole from the business. He’s hired a PI to look into it.”

I stared at her, hoping this was a bad joke. Because that was next level. “Are you kidding me? He stole from the company?”

“That’s what he said.” She stabbed the straw into the soggy mint at the bottom of her glass. “Something about shares in a mysterious cocoa bean farm. Did the investment tank or did the money go elsewhere?” she mused.

“Like into his nightclub?” I asked.

Mom lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and beckoned me closer. “You should drop in on the club and then steal his Rolex while you’re there.”

That surprised a laugh out of me. “He does love that stupid Rolex.”

She reached over and patted my hand. “On second thought, concentrate on your tour, sweetie. You can’t take people rock climbing from jail. And talking too much about my ex is bad for my chakra.”

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