The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (color ebook reader TXT) 📗

“My toes so need a pedi. Like, I-won’t-even-wear-my-flip-flops-into-the-salon-level bad,” Stacy said, shaking her head in disgust.

“Want me to drive?” Dylan asked, snatching up her keys and hoping it wasn’t obvious she was trying to get them out of the door fast.

“Sure,” Stacy said, waving to Neale, who was drinking the rest of Dylan’s water in the kitchen.

“Are you girls coming back for dinner?” Bernice asked, her tone too innocent for Dylan to be comfortable with the question.

“I don’t think so. Dyl, I was thinking we could try the new Ethiopian place by my house?”

“Sounds great. It does look—”

“Not as good as who you had for lunch,” Bernice interrupted Dylan with another cackle, which Neale echoed from the kitchen.

“Okay, Mom. I love you,” Dylan said, wrenching the door open.

“I don’t get it,” Stacy said, looking bewildered.

“Long story. I’ll explain in the car.”

“Okay. Bye, Delacroix,” Stacy called over her shoulder as Dylan nudged her out the door.

Pressing unlock on her keys, Dylan sighed in exasperation as the car lights flashed. “As soon as she asked about dinner, I knew she wasn’t done with the jokes.”

“What was she talking about?” Stacy asked, jumping into the high seat of the SUV.

Dylan started the car and carefully backed out of the driveway, aiming her gaze and her words over her shoulder and away from Stacy’s prying eyes. “It’s just my family making fun of me for agreeing to help Mike Robinson with a project. This happened over lunch, so now she is making snack jokes.”

“She really can’t help herself. The dirty jokes are part of her charm.”

“You might be the only person who finds her jokes charming.”

“Come on, she’s funny. She isn’t that bad.”

“Remember the salad dressing incident at the volleyball game?”

“Okay, that was bad,” Stacy said. “But it was like fifteen years ago. Plus, I like when a woman in her sixties can laugh at sex. Everybody likes to pretend women stop even knowing about sex after menopause. I like that Bernice isn’t playing the no-sex-for-women game.”

“Bernice has never played a societal-expectation game in her life,” Dylan said, shrugging as she turned left. Stacy might have been right about her family making slight improvements in their behavior, but Dylan would rather be present for the freezing over of hell than admit it to her friend.

“Well, that’s true,” Stacy capitulated as a sly smile crept across her face. “So you are working with Mike, huh?”

“Yes. Don’t make that face.”

“I’m not making a face.”

Stacy was absolutely making a face. She lacked any form of subtlety, and behind her hot-pink lipstick she was trying her hardest to suppress a smile that said more than enough.

“If you start making Bernice jokes, I swear I’ll turn around and drop you back off at my parents’ house.”

“Fine. No jokes,” Stacy said, throwing her hands up, then letting them fall to her lap with a smack. “But isn’t he cuter than Ghost Boyfriend?”

“Why are you calling Nicolas ‘Ghost Boyfriend’?”

“Because no one but you can see him.” Stacy laughed. “He’s tethered to your Texas apartment, Casper-style.”

“You spend too much time with Neale.” Dylan’s chuckle came out in an unladylike snort-laugh. “Nicolas isn’t a ghost. He just isn’t big on the cold and eating unfamiliar foods. It makes travel tricky.”

“And you are okay with that?” Stacy asked, her lip curled slightly.

Dylan paused. She’d stopped asking herself that question after Nicolas had freaked out over Thai green curry on a date. She just chalked it up to his quirks about deviating from known quantities and ate whatever she wanted when he wasn’t around. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to eat Thai food. It was just that he was a creature of habit, which she liked most of the time. Hell, his dedication to structure was what had drawn her to him in the first place. Their life was the exact opposite of her childhood, which Dylan found comforting. Or at least she’d thought she did, until Stacy had brought it up.

She glanced over at her friend, trying to prepare an answer, when Stacy’s expression relaxed. “Whatever. If it’s what you like, then I guess it works for you.” She shrugged before adding, “For the record, I agree with your family. Mike looks delicious.”

“Please. I have to see this person regularly. I don’t want a bawdy laugh track running through my head every time I talk to him about fundraising or our parents’ latest fight or whatever.”

“Bawdy, huh? Impressive use of SAT words.”

Dylan flipped on her blinker and turned into the parking lot of Richie Nails. “Tell me what’s new with you.”

“I want you to know I’m giving you a free pass. Don’t think I didn’t notice the subject change. We are so coming back to Mike.” Stacy unbuckled her seat belt and jumped down from the car with a dainty hop. “Actually, things have been great at work. I got a tiny pay bump.” She held the door of the salon open with one hand and her thumb and forefinger together in front of her face with the other, emphasizing how little her pay raise was.

“That’s fantastic. Congratulations!” Dylan squealed as she walked through the nail salon’s door.

“Yeah, but that’s not all. Hi, Tammi,” Stacy said to the older woman moving toward them. Dylan and Stacy had gone to this salon since high school, back when Stacy had thought that sparkly acrylic claws were the height of nail fashion. The trend had never caught on.

“I almost didn’t recognize you. You look so adult in your work clothes,” Tammi said, giving Dylan’s shoulders a squeeze. Despite being about half Dylan’s height, Tammi ran the staff at Richie Nails with an iron grip. Not even her husband disobeyed a Tammi order. If she told Dylan to sit in a chair, she did it without question. Even Neale listened to her. “We haven’t seen you in a while.”

“It’s been forever. I have been swamped with work in Texas.” Not a lie, but Dylan felt guilty all the same. Giving Stacy a hug,