Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
She’s also the owner of Elodie’s Chocolates, which is a mile from here. I click on the link, and hello, sex challenge.
There’s her picture. The gorgeous, sassy blonde who sent a vibrator to herself at my bar tonight.
It’s not quite like finding someone’s wallet, but perhaps it’s even better. And really, I should follow Grams’ advice.
Even if it means I’m bending the rules a little. Or a lot.
3
THE DILDO THIEF
Elodie
Talk about a parenting trial by fire.
That’s what the last two years have been. With no safety net or help from a partner, I’ve had to scramble to have the period talk, the we need to change schools convo, and the birds and the bees discussion with Amanda.
Parenting is so hard, especially when it comes to parenting your thirteen-year-old sister.
But this is uncharted terrain, and I don’t even want to google what to do when your kid sister steals your battery-operated-boyfriend.
Since last night’s disappearing dildo act, I’ve been practicing for just the right moment to ask Amanda if she nicked it, but I’m still flabbergasted the next day when I’m behind the counter in my chocolate shop, checking the time. Three-thirty. She should be here any minute.
My assistant manager, Kenji, catches me staring at the clock. “Please don’t tell me you’re already counting the minutes till quitting time. If so, there’s no hope for the rest of us,” he says, while tying bows on gift boxes.
As I delicately place salted caramels into paper cups on the counter, I peer out the glass door, past the pretty Elodie’s script in robin’s egg blue. No sign of Amanda yet.
There’s a brief lull in customers. “Listen,” I say quietly to Kenji, since I can’t take the worry anymore. “I’m seriously worried that Amanda took my—” Dammit. It’s hard to say, even to an adult who’s a friend. Where is the handbook for all this hard stuff?
Kenji makes a rolling gesture with his hand. “Your flat iron? Your credit card? Your Webflix password? Or the Louis Roederer 2013 Cristal Rosé Brut that you got me as a surprise for my twenty-eighth birthday next month?”
Laughing, I whisper out of the side of my mouth, “My…Command Performance.”
“Your Command Performance?” he repeats, at top volume.
“Shush,” I say.
His brown eyes pop. “Oh! That must be one of your battery-operated friends.”
A flush starts in my chest, spreads up my neck, and splashes across my cheeks. “How did you know that’s what it was?”
He laugh-scoffs. “We don’t call you the Queen of Toys for nothing. You’ve gifted sex toys to Rachel, Hazel, Juliet, and Fable.” He frowns. “But not me. So sad.”
Shit. Is that crossing a line with an employee, to give him one? But he’s a friend too. “Do you want one?”
“Nope. I want the champagne. But don’t even try to turn this around. Tell me all about this missing Command Performance,” he says, like he’s eating this story up with a spoon.
At least this conversation has taken my mind off The Chocolate Connoisseur offer still sitting on my desk at home. It’s too hard to think about the future of my shop and the right way to run it, when I have to deal with a missing dildo.
As I pluck the final caramel with a pair of tweezers, setting it delicately in the paper, I take a deep breath and explain more. “So last night while I was at Sticks and Stones, I ordered a new toy for one-hour delivery. An hour later I was home, putting on jammies when the package delivered notification from Risqué Business popped up on my phone. But when I left my room, Amanda had already disappeared into her bedroom, and there was no pink envelope from the shop waiting for me. Ergo…”
Kenji’s eyes spark with pass-the-popcorn delight as he clears his throat and tips his head toward the door. “I think that’s what happened to your order.”
A bell chimes. Like I’m watching a traffic accident in slow-mo, I turn to the store’s entrance.
Mister Droolworthy walks into my shop with easy confidence. He’s wearing well-worn jeans, a dark blue Henley, and the most satisfied grin. Maybe because he’s carrying a pink envelope as he holds open the door for a pack of other customers to go ahead of him because when it rains, it pours.
On the one hand, I’m relieved because I couldn’t quite believe my sister would take it. But on the other hand, I’m looking for a portal to another dimension.
That casual smile never leaves his too-handsome face as he hangs back, letting the other customers head to the counter first.
I straighten my shoulders and smile for the customers, hoping they’re fast and I can get this whole thing over with quickly. The first pair asks questions about my new line of bonbons in autumn colors, then the dark chocolate-covered blackberries in a rich purple shade from the Melt In Your Mouth line. Maybe I can talk to them the whole time and Mister D will get the message and drop off the dong, then be on his merry way without mocking me.