No Laughing Matter: Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy Page 10

  I swallowed down bile. Every conversation I’d ever had with Carlotta was running through my mind.

  “All this time the Watsons acted innocent.” Mom accelerated around another corner. “Smiling at me and carrying on with you, like they weren’t stabbing me in the back. I should burn their house to the ground with them inside it.”

  “Let us out of the car,” ordered Asher, his voice tight. “Do it now, before anyone gets hurt.”

  She let out a manic laugh, baying like a hyena before biting off the sound. “Before anyone gets hurt? It’s too late for that.”

  “Where are we going?” I demanded.

  “We’re going to start a new life, away from the cheating asshole I was stupid enough to marry.”

  “But where?”

  “Wherever the wind blows.” Her mood suddenly changed, like it so often did, and a humorless smile crept over her face. But her smile was too wide and I could see too much white in her eyes. When she turned her smile on me, cold fear prickled over my skin. “It’s going to be an amazing adventure. Just me and my darling boys on the road together, in search of a new home. You boys love your mother, don’t you? The three of you are so much more loving than your father. You’ll take care of me, better than he ever did.”

  Something wet was running down my wrist. The sensation brought me back into the present, and I realized a blob of jelly was sliding down my arm.

  “Shit.” I grabbed one of the paper napkins from the table to wipe the mess. Then I dropped the uneaten part of the donut onto another napkin. I’d lost my appetite.

  “You okay?” asked Asher.

  I looked out to the ocean to banish the ghosts of the past. “Yeah. Just… memories.”

  He nodded, his eyes softening as though he understood. “Talk to Trixie,” he suggested. “Suggest it’s time Carlotta knew the truth about what happened back then, and why Mom took us away.”

  “Getting Trixie to listen would be close to impossible.”

  “If you have feelings for Carlotta, it’s worth trying.”

  I frowned at his suggestion. “I don’t have those kind of feelings for her. It’s not like that. Sure, I like spending time with her. But we’re not dating.”

  “Hmm,” he said in a non-committal tone.

  I shot him an annoyed glare. “We’re not. It can’t happen, and it won’t.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “With my job, how could I have any kind of relationship? It’s impossible.”

  “Am I arguing?”

  “You sound like you’re not, but that’s exactly what you’re doing.” It was an Asher thing. He was a master at it.

  “If I were arguing, I’d tell you a relationship might not be impossible,” he pointed out.

  “Asher.”

  “And I’d explain why.”

  “Asher!”

  He lifted both hands. “Never mind. You’re not dating Carlotta. There’s nothing going on between you two. Not a single thing.”

  I shook my head. “Would you stop that?”

  He widened his eyes, blinking slowly. “Stop what?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Carlotta

  Romeo and Juliet was no longer my mother’s favorite Shakespearean play.

  After my kiss with Mason, she spent the rest of the day stomping around while heaving dramatic sighs. Dinner was mostly silent, until she started muttering about betrayal and paraphrasing lines from Macbeth, urging me to wash away imaginary blood I’d presumably spilt when I’d stabbed her in the back.

  “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” She pointed at my hands. “Yet who would have thought your mother to have so much blood in her?”

  Honestly, I was just relieved she wasn’t lying on the floor covered in ketchup, pretending to be a corpse.

  On Monday morning, I drove my crappy Toyota to the address Santino had given me, where I found a warehouse full of crates. Attached to it was a small, messy office. A young woman was sitting at the desk in the office, gossiping on the phone.

  I’d worn a smart skirt and matching top, but the woman at the desk had spiky black hair, two eyebrow piercings and a nose ring, and she was wearing a black Metallica T-shirt and leather mini skirt. On one leg was a large cast covered with graffiti, mostly band names and curse words. A pair of crutches leaned against the desk.

  When she saw me, she ended her phone call. “Hey, you must be my new assistant. I’m Faith.”

  “Carlotta,” I said with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I’d get up, but I broke my ankle.” Faith motioned to her cast. “In the mosh pit at a Soul Slaughter concert. Totally worth it. Stayed to the end anyway, moshing on one leg.” She gave me the heavy metal sign with one hand, holding up her index finger and pinky to make horns.

  “Cool?” It came out as a question by mistake. “Um. Cool. That’s why you need an assistant?”

  She nodded. “I can still answer the phone, but it’s harder to get around the office and I can’t do Santino’s pickups. That’s the main reason you’re here.”

  “His pickups?”

  “Sometimes Santino sends me to pick up stock. It’s usually just a few boxes that’ll fit into your trunk.”

  “What kind of stock?”

  “All kinds of things. Like this, for example.” She moved a stack of papers on the desk, uncovered a round black-and-white ceramic animal about the size of a fist, and held it up.

  I blinked. “What is it?”

  “A fat cat paperweight.”

  “It’s not a raccoon?”

  She dropped it back on the desk with a thump. “Blows my mind what people will buy.” She made a kaboom sound with her mouth, with matching hand gestures like her head had just exploded.

  “So you drive around and collect boxes?” I glanced into the warehouse full of crates.

  “Most get delivered, but I like it when I get to pick a few up. Gets me out of the office.” She screwed up her face. “Won’t be able to do it again for a few weeks, though. This cast is too heavy on the accelerator. When I tried driving, I almost took out the side of the building. Tore off my wing mirror.”

  “Probably safer to wait then.” I tried not to laugh because she looked so serious. “Anyway, I’m here to assist, and Santino said you’d talk me through it.”

  “You can start with the filing. That’s my least favorite job.”

  I ran my gaze across the towering stacks of paper that covered the desk and floor. “Is it?” I asked weakly.

  “Here are the filing cabinets.” Grabbing her crutches, she limped to the tall metal drawers. “Everything gets filed by date. Purchase receipts go in this cabinet. Invoices get matched with delivery documents, then they go in that one.” Her cellphone rang and she waved at me to get started before thumping awkwardly down on the chair to answer it. “Yeah?” she demanded. “Oh, hey. You heard about me and him? Nah, he’s a swamp rat. I’ll tell you what I told him.” She leaned back, lifting her leg to settle her cast on the desk, ignoring the papers that crumpled beneath it. “I told him he was a swamp rat. And you know what else? He’s a moron. I told him that, too. I said it to his face.”

  Her conversation sounded like it might take a while, so I opened the cabinets to check their contents, then started work on the nearest pile of paper.

  While I matched the documents, I thought about Mason.

  He’d already broken my heart, he was keeping secrets, and I couldn’t trust him. In other words, he was the last person in the world I should want to kiss.

  But none of that had mattered while we were doing it.

  Our crazy chemistry defied logic. I’d thrown caution to the wind, and once I started it had felt too good to stop. Even now, I couldn’t stop smiling when I remembered kissing him. He was exactly wrong for me, and I craved more.

  But maybe the fact he was so clearly everything I didn’t want in my life was a good thing?

  Because I already knew I couldn’t trust Mason, I could handle him in the same way I cop
ed with Mom. I’d built a protective wall against her fantasies, and knew to doubt every word she said. If I didn’t lose sight of the fact that Mason was equally untrustworthy, I could enjoy spending time with him without getting attached.

  I could kiss him again. I could flirt with him, and maybe he’d take those big, capable hands of his and run them over my body. With a little encouragement, he might caress my—

  My cellphone rang.

  I jumped in the air with a shriek loud enough that Faith broke off her conversation. Tugging my phone out of my pocket, I saw it was Santino.

  “How are you doing?” he asked. “Faith keeping you busy?”

  “I’m filing some paperwork.” I glanced over at Faith, but she’d turned her attention back to talking about the swamp rat moron.

  Santino chuckled. “That’ll keep you occupied for a while, seeing as I can never get Faith to file anything. But I need you to pick up some cartons for me.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  He gave me the address and Faith paused her phone call long enough to give me a wave as I left.

  My destination turned out to be a private house in a run down suburb. When I knocked on the door, an eye appeared on the other side of the peephole.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m Carlotta. Santino sent me.”

  The door opened and a sour-faced, rough looking man in dirty jeans and a dirtier flannel shirt gave me a surly grunt. “Open your trunk.”

  I went to my car to do what he said. When I turned back, he was carrying four cartons out of his house all at once. They weren’t big cartons, but they looked heavy, and he gave another grunt as he loaded them into my trunk.

  “What’s in the cartons?” I asked.

  “Says it here.” He tapped a sticker on the top of the closest one and I peered at the smudged printing.

  “Duck W. L. Scent,” I read the only thing the sticker said. Then I frowned. “What’s that? Nothing to do with actual ducks, is it? I have bad history.”

  He scowled. “Just take the cartons, lady.”

  Rude.

  “What about paperwork?” I asked, thinking about all the filing back at the office.

  “No papers.” He spat on the ground, narrowly missing my tire, before trudging back up to the driveway to his house.

  “Wait.” I slammed the trunk closed, and when he grudgingly turned back to face me, I gave him my widest smile. “It was a pleasure to meet you. I didn’t catch your name, but I can’t wait to get to know you better at our Friday night work drinks. Thanks for being so welcoming!” I dropped him a saucy wink before sliding into the car and driving away. Watching him in the rear vision mirror, I grinned at his confused face as he stared after me.

  When I pulled up outside the warehouse, Faith hobbled out to show me where to stack the cartons. Then I followed her into the office.

  “Santino said I should pay you in cash. Don’t worry about the official tax stuff.” She collapsed back into her chair, lifting her cast back onto the desk. “That okay with you?”

  “He doesn’t want me to fill in any forms?”

  “We’re informal around here.” She waved a hand around the papers piled up like snowdrifts.

  I wanted to protest that she could be crossing a line from informal to illegal. Then I thought about the thuggish-looking guy I’d picked up the cartons from, and paused to wonder why anyone would send an off-the-books employee to pick up stock at all, when a legitimate distribution business would surely have regular delivery drivers.

  “Where’s the restroom?” I asked Faith, pretending I hadn’t seen it when I was unloading the cartons.

  “Go through the warehouse. It’s on the other side.” She picked up her phone and was already complaining about her boyfriend to whoever was on the other end by the time I’d walked out.

  I went straight to the cartons I’d unloaded and checked Faith was still on the phone and not looking my way before prying one open. Then I reached in to pull out one of the small boxes that were tightly packed inside.

  “Water lily scented duck soap,” I muttered, reading the cartoon lettering on the bright yellow box. “What the hell?”

  Whatever water lily scent was supposed to smell like, the stench coming from the box was exactly like puke. But I opened the end of the small box and tipped its contents onto my palm. Wrinkling my nose at the bright green duck-shaped soap, I shook my head.

  “See what you did to me, Mom?” I muttered aloud.

  I couldn’t believe I’d let Mom into my head. After growing up with her fantasies, now I was letting myself imagine all kinds of wild things. For a moment there, I’d wondered if Santino might be some kind of criminal mastermind, and this warehouse a front for nefarious activity. Maybe a smuggling ring. Counterfeit money or drugs. Organized crime. Mafia hits. Or the illegal duck penis trade.

  But unlike Mom, I didn’t live in fantasyland. I was firmly planted in the real world where I didn’t meet crime lords at parties, and I was holding nothing more sinister than soap. Sure, it was green, puke-scented, duck-shaped novelty soap, which made it hideous and pointless. But it definitely wasn’t illegal.

  Of course Santino was legit. Imagining anything else had been a product of my Mom-enhanced, overblown imagination.

  And the fact my hand now stunk of puke? Well, that just proved one thing beyond all doubt. Faith had been right.

  People would buy anything.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Carlotta

  That night, Mason didn’t call.

  I tried not to be disappointed. It wasn’t like I was really expecting him to call so soon. And just because I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him, didn’t mean he was having the same problem. Looking the way he did, there was no way he’d go through sexual dry patches like the one I’d been weathering. He probably kissed women all the time.

  The next day, I worked in Santino’s office again and got back to Mom’s house that afternoon, just before she did. She was pulling in behind me as I was climbing up the steps to her front door.

  That was when I smelled it.

  “What the hell?” As I got to the top step, I gagged and pinched my nose.

  In front of Mom’s front door was a big pile of stinking manure, complete with flies buzzing lazily around it.

  “What is that?” Mom hurried past me and leaned around the mountain of poop to unlock the front door. “Xul? Are you there? Are you okay?”

  Her dog came padding out, yawning. He sniffed the pile of crap and wagged his tail.

  Mom turned to me, her eyes wide and dark in her pale face. She must have decided to bring her class’s Romeo and Juliet lessons to an abrupt end, because she was wearing a severe, high-necked puritan’s dress with a red letter ‘A’ sewn on the front, and her hair was covered with a gray bonnet. She’d clearly switched to teaching The Scarlet Letter.

  “This is an outrage,” she snapped. “The last straw!”

  “Whoever dumped this must have known we were both out. They could have been watching the house.” My stomach was churning, and not just because of the smell. The trench coat guy who’d thrown paint at me must have struck again. Did he hate me that much?

  “He’s not getting away with this.” Mom growled. “I demand retribution!”

  I stared down the street, looking for movement. “I can’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still around. We should go in and call the police.”

  Mom disappeared into the house, and I hesitated a moment longer, doing another check up and down the street. When I turned to go in, Mom hurried back out holding a large egg carton. She strode down the steps with the egg carton in one hand and her skirts lifted with the other.

  “Mom?” I called. “Where are you going?”

  She didn’t slow down. “You think I’d let Edward do this without striking back? That man has no idea who he’s dealing with.”

  I blinked. “Ed Lennox? No, Mom, it wasn’t—”

  She was already out of earshot, charging down th
e sidewalk toward her neighbor’s front steps, Xul trotting at her heels.

  I raised my voice, rushing after her. “Mom. Stop. I don’t think it was Ed Lennox who did it.”

  “Behold the righteous rage of Athena, goddess of war!” She pulled an egg out of the carton.

  “Wait, Mom. What are you doing?”

  “Stand back, Carlotta. Revenge is my birthright!”

  She hurled the egg. It hit its target with a loud crack, exploding over Ed Lennox's front door. Xul barked joyfully, capering around Mom’s feet.

  Ed's door flew open. He stared at the mess, his jaw slack and his hairy eyebrows jumping. “What are you doing?” he roared. “You devil woman!”

  Mom laughed gleefully, grabbing another egg out of the carton.

  “Don’t,” I yelled, running in front of her. “Stop!”

  “Get back, Carlotta.” She drew her arm back and Ed darted back into the house, slamming the door behind him.

  “He didn’t leave poop on your porch.” I waved my arms frantically in front of her to stop her launching the egg she was holding.

  “You’re either with me or against me. Now get out of my way.” Mom tried to push past me, but I wouldn’t let her.

  “Stop. You’re egging the wrong guy. The porch pooper was probably the man from Saturday.”

  She frowned, lowering the egg. “The man from Saturday?”

  “You’ve forgotten the duck lover who threw red paint on me?” My voice rose with indignation. “I was attacked, Mom. That’s not something most mothers would forget. You could at least pretend to care.”

  “But don’t you see? Edward sent that man. He’s behind all this. It’s part of his plan to drive me into an early grave.”

  “So he has minions now? Mom, come back to reality.” I glanced back at the house. Ed was still inside, probably dialing 911. “Let’s get out of here before the police come and arrest us.”

  “The police can’t help us, Carlotta. I’m the only one who can save us.”