Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“No, Mo.” I shake my head. “No, to all of the above. We’re on a business dinner, and she needed a place that could accommodate her service dog Benji on short notice.” She shakes me by the shoulders, so I add, “Trust me, I would have gone anywhere else if I’d have been able to be choosy.”
“Don’t be rude.”
“Then don’t be crazy. The whole restaurant was five seconds away from calling the police on your little show for a wellness check.”
She scoffs. “I didn’t look that crazy.”
I eye her knowingly. “Yes, my dear sister, you did.”
Vinny shoves through the two of us with a bowl full of who knows what, a focused but frantic look on his face. “You two mind having this little quarrel somewhere other than my kitchen?”
“No problem,” Mo agrees straightaway. “Chase was just about to take me out to meet Brooke Baker.”
“Mo, no!” I exclaim, but she lunges and bobs, and I have to body-block her like an offensive lineman for the New York Mavericks. “Mo! No! You can’t go out there and make a scene.”
She grabs a knife off Vinny’s prep table and lunges toward me at an alarming rate. My eyes grow so wide they nearly span the space of my forehead, and I move back with a shuffle that knocks me into a rack of pots.
“What the hell?! Have you lost your mind?”
“What?” she asks as she picks up a zucchini the size of a football and starts hacking at it over a chopping board like her intention for the knife was vegetable-focused and not trying to commit homicide on her own flesh and blood.
“You just tried to stab me because I won’t let you harass Brooke Baker!”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. If I wanted to stab you, you’d be bleeding.”
My brother-in-law Vinny laughs from across the table, and far from the first time, I question the health of their pairing.
“But what I don’t understand,” Mo says while she continues to chop at the zucchini like it personally harmed her, “is why you thought it’d be a good idea to bring my favorite freaking author here, to my restaurant, if you didn’t plan to let me meet her. It’s like you wanted to torture me.”
“I needed a last-minute reservation, and seeing as I kind of have an in here, it was the natural choice.”
“Not anymore,” she states firmly.
“What?”
“You don’t have an in here anymore.” She pushes her nose toward the ceiling and continues roughly chopping the zucchini.
“Seriously? I’m your brother.”
She shakes her head. “Wrong. From now on, you’re the Judas formerly known as my brother.”
“Vinny?” I try, but he holds both of his hands up in self-defense, putting a pause on the meat he’s slicing and everything.
“Oh no. Don’t you try to drag me into this.”
Suddenly, Mo makes one last attempt, dropping the knife and lunging at the swinging door that leads out of the kitchen. I juke to stop her, and she grabs me by the tie, nearly choking me as she pulls and tugs at it, trying to free herself.
“Mo, stop it,” I chastise, setting her away as gently as I can while being firm. “Another time, I promise. But this has already been a big, stressful night for Brooke, and I don’t want to add to it.”
Mo frowns, picking up the knife from the table again and stabbing it into a loaf of bread with sadistically dramatic fashion. That bread, I imagine, is now the highest form of voodoo doll for my organs.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize one last time to her and Vinny and make my exit from the kitchen. I feel like I’ve worked out and am, perhaps, even drenched in sweat, but I’ve already taken a far too long leave of absence to stop by the actual bathroom on my way back to the table.
When I take my seat again, Brooke is slathering a pat of butter onto another piece of bread. She’s obviously hungry, so I don’t dare tell her that I’ve just delayed our meal by another fifteen minutes by distracting the chef with a brawl in the kitchen.
“Everything okay?” she asks, probably because I’ve been gone “to the bathroom” longer than Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.
“Yeah, of course. It’s great.”
She nods then, a little smile curving up the corners of her pink mouth. It’s suspiciously knowing, and I’m not sure why.
“What? What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Her eyes flit to my neck. “Your tie is in a knot around your throat.”
My hand scrambles, going to the silk material at my chest, only to find it missing, just like she noted. I look down, and even with as awkward as it is to try to look at your own neck, I can see it’s around my throat like a scarf, tied in a loose knot with the top of itself in the front.