Page 25 of Dirty Hearts

It didn’t help though.

I’d sat here for the last hour giving the menu another attempt. Every time I thought I had something, I thought of Claudius and ended up squashing the notepaper up and throwing it on the ground.

What did he want?

Why did he come by?Maybe the sensible thing to do should have been to hear whatever it was he had to say to me,thenslap him.

At least then I wouldn’t have been stuck wondering with suspense gripping at my insides and making me crazy.

Jesus… I looked over the recipe I was making for the new beef lasagna frowned when I noticed I’d added two different types of chili. The habanero Kelly had cautioned against and the scorpion. That would have ruined the meal.

Ughh. I tore that out of the notebook, scrunched it up, and tossed it to the others.

“Fucking shit!” I bellowed.

At that moment, Kelly pushed the door open and came in with some iced tea.

“Gosh, looks like I came at the right time. You look like you’re going to blow up.” She winced.

“Kelly, not now. Please. I just can’t.”

She frowned. “Drink the tea. It will cool you down. It’s been a hot day, and at the rate you’re going, you’re going to give yourself an aneurism.”

Maybe she was right. I took the tea and downed it, not realizing how thirsty I was. The peach flavor and the ice did cool me down and to some extent calm me. But just a little. Only a little.

“Thank you.”

“Feel better?” She quirked her brows.

I shook my head. “No. I feel awful.”

“How about you go home, and I can finish up here?”

Kelly was such a great friend. I loved that she took such great care of me, but I couldn’t let her do that. Not tonight. She and Cody had a big date tonight. She’d worked late for the last few nights.

“No, I’m good.”

“You kind of aren’t. Please don’t bite my head off, but have you thought of maybe going to see Claudius? This is a different question to the other night. Then I was just talking about closure. Seeing him changed that.”

I was about to tell her that I never wanted to see him again when there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.” I tried to look less antsy.

When the door opened and a really tall guy came in with that badass look and that sureness-of-himself attitude, I could have breathed fire.

I straightened immediately and eyed him with daggers.

Kelly tensed.

“Relax, your manager told me I could come back here,” he stated.

“What do you want?” I asked. There was no point in pleasantries. I knew that mobster look, could tell it from afar. This guy was one of them.

“Geez, those guys sure know how to pick ballsy women.” He cleared his throat. “The name’s Maurice. I’m just a messenger, I swear. Came to give you this.” He pulled out an envelope from the inside of his leather jacket.

I stood up and walked over to him, taking the envelope when he held it out to me.

“What’s inside?”