ImPerfectly Matched! (The Match #2) (19 page)

Darby looked at me oddly when I told her we won’t be going in until four. She nodded toward Stephanie and I nodded yes. Total bullshit, but hey, it worked.

***

When I get to the shop Zack laughs. “Building is still standing we did good right boss lady?”

I give him the finger as I walk past him scanning for Ricco and the little…human.

“Ricco messaged that he has that chick starting today at 5. Supposed to be nice and not try to fuck her,” Marcus laughs as he rounds the corner.

“Excuse me?” I ask, pushing my shades up on top of my head.

He stops dead in his tracks and holds his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger boss lady.”

“You call me boss lady one more time and I will slice you,” I snap.

“Kat,” Stephanie whispers behind me.

I shoot her a glare and she looks down.

The phone rings and Darby hops over and answers it, “Forever Steel, how can I help you?”

I push past the guys and head to his room. “Where is he?”

“Kids sick, puking and shit. He took the day off, may need tomorrow too,” Zack says and I turn around.

“He didn’t text you?” Marcus asks walking over to the reception desk.

“No,” I seethe.

I watch as Marcus opens Ricco’s appointment book. “Huh.”

“What’s huh?” I ask and walk toward him reaching for the book.

“No can do,” he tosses it over my head to Zack.

“What the fuck?” I ask looking at the two of them like they’ve lost their damn minds because they fucking clearly have.

I hold out my hand and he tosses it to Stephanie, who catches it and gasps.

“Steph, hand it over,” I say holding out my hand.

“Don’t do it sweet stuff,” Zack warns her.

“Steph?” I gasp and she tries to throw it to Marcus but I snatch it up, hold it tight to my chest and walk to my room.

“Kat,” Marcus warns and I flip him off on my way.

Once in my room I slam the door and open the damn Holy Grail.

I see a little drawing in the note section of a cat inside what appears to be a tornado on the first week of the month. The next week is a cat with its ears flat against its head. The next is a sleeping cat and the last a cat with shades on.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean.

Each month is the same three cats and the next month too. Then I see something different. On one day there is a cat holding a syringe three months later another.

A knock at the door alerts me to someone thinking it’s okay to fuck with me, and it’s not.

Then the motherfucking door opens and Marcus pushes Zack in the room, shuts it behind him as he exits on a laugh.

“What the fuck?”

“Oh hey Kat how are you?” he asks running his hand through his black hair nervously.

“What?”

“Um nothing, I kind of need the book,” he points to Ricco’s calendar.

“Take the damn thing.” I thrust it at him.

A look of relief washes over his face as he all too eagerly snatches it out of my hand.

“Wait just a minute,” I say as he hurriedly opens the door.

“Hot people to ink,” he says scurrying out.

“Lives to save,” Marcus laughs out loud and the door slams behind him.

A few minutes later I am still standing there dazed and confused when the door opens and Stephanie and Darby walk in.

“You okay?” Stephanie asks.

“Do you think Natalia is okay?” Darby asks at the same time.

I plop down in my chair. “Honestly I have no clue.”

The phone rings at the same time the door chime goes off and I stand up. “Gonna be one of those days. If I were you two I’d go hide. I know I would if I could.”

An hour later and in walks twinkle tits, the bitch I told Ricco he was not hiring. She puts on a fake ass smile and says, “Hello Kat, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

I lean back in my chair and laugh shaking my head no.

“No?” she questions.

“No. As in no we didn’t. I can see past your fake as fuck smile. No, as in, no fucking way you’re ever going to work here and no as in-”

“Um Kat,” Marcus interrupts as Zack pushes him out from the hallway.

“What?”

“Ricco wanted to be sure you understood, we need someone. We especially need someone over the weekend.”

I make an O with my hands. “I give this many fucks.”

“He also said we should point out that he is the,” he shakes his head, “fuck.”

“Go on Marcus, be the man,” Zack goads him.

“He’s part owner and-”

“Part owner doesn’t mean shit-’

“He said that we need someone and so far she’s the best option,” Marcus says cautiously.

“I agreed to a two-week trial run,” Twinkle tits adds. “I’m sure you and I will become fast friends.”

Both Stephanie and Darby chuckle and she shoots them a look.

I walk to the door and open it. “This here is your opportunity to walk out of here unscathed. You and I will never be friends and if you ever give my sister or my friend the hairy eyebrow, oops I mean hairless eyebrows,” I point to hers that clearly did not need plucking for another ten years, “I will grab you by the three hairs on your head and drag you out of here myself.”

She gasps and then straightens. “Ricco,” she rolls the R and seriously it makes me laugh. No one says his name like that, “said to stand firm and the position was mine.”

“Well tell, Ricco,” I roll the R right back at her, “that I’ve already hired Stephanie and we’re all set.”

Stephanie was in heaven. I mean she was seriously excited about working with me and a bunch of ‘bad boys’, so excited she snapchatted a picture of her and the guys.

New Life, new job. Yay me!

A lot, and I mean a lot of messages went back and forth between the guys. I knew damn well it was Ricco.

Fuck him.

Fuck. Him.

“Ask them how Natalia is doing?” I whisper to Darby.

“Why don’t you?” she asks raising a speculative eyebrow at me.

I stand up and head to my room. “I’m busy, that’s why.”

Throughout the night Stephanie seems less down, which is totally understandable, the shop is hopping, and the shore was full of hot men waiting to get inked. They were also incredibly taken with her sweet Pollyanna demeanor, which had her blushing every time I looked at her.

At closing time, I was ready to sit back and breathe in the calm, something I always did after the guys left, but now I had the girls with me.

“Let’s go, we can pick up a get well bag and take it to Natalia,” Darby says walking to the door.

“I’m ready to go home and-”

I stop when I see the Carrie face, and that face is coming at me live from my sister. “I told her we were stopping by.”

She walks back, pushes past me and heads to my room. “Give me just a minute.”

“Kat,” Stephanie whispers and motions me to the desk.

I walk over and she pulls Ricco’s appointment book out of the desk.

“This,” she points to the cat with the syringe, “isn’t that next Wednesday?”

I look at her like she’s fucking crazy, because, “Of course that’s next Wednesday.”

“Well that’s the day we get our shot,” she whispers.

Darby starts coming back down the hall and she shoves it back in the drawer and smiles. “You ready doll face?”

“Steph, what’s your-”

She glares at me and it takes me by surprise so I shut it down.

“Ready?” She whisks past me to the back door.

After Darby fills the cart and essentially empties my wallet at the fucking store where more than half the motherfuckers are wearing pajama pants and apparently don’t realize without a bra their tits are hanging almost out of their too short tee shirts, we pull up to Ricco’s place.

I look in the rearview mirror and she is tapping away on her phone’s keyboard.

Stephanie gets out of the car with one bag, Darby with another and I sit to wait.

“Katherine,” Darby snaps, “she likes you.”

“Apparently you don’t,” I groan as I turn off the car and haul my ass out of it.

As soon as we get to the steps the door opens and Ricco fills it completely. “Completely unnecessary kiddo,” he says as he messes up her hair like they’re fucking BFF’s. “She’s in the living room. Can’t miss it, there are only three rooms in there.”

After they go inside I start to walk in and he stands in front of the doorway, leans back and says, “We’ll be right in.”

Then he shuts the door, plants his feet nearly shoulder width apart, and crosses his arms over his chest.

He’s wearing a white Yankees hat on backwards, a white wife beater, and navy blue loose fitting sweatpants. Loose fitting everywhere except his nearly offensive mountain cock that he certainly can’t hide.

“Stop looking at my cock Kat and-”

“Fuck you,” I snap.

“Don’t be a bitch, it’s been a shit day.”

“Yeah, it has. Tweedledee and Tweedledum think they have some sort of authority over me and you hire Twinkle Tits.” When I say it his jaw tightens and it makes me sick to my stomach. Clearly he fucking has the hots for her. “You know what, fuck you. I’m in no mood.”

“No, abso-fucking-lutley not. This shit stops now. You don’t fucking run the show. The shop never has and never will work like that.”

“Let me go say hello to your daughter and I’ll leave you the fuck alone.” I feel my eyes heat up and I don’t like it. Not one bit.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

I clear my throat and nod. “Okay then.” I turn to walk away.

“I won’t be in tomorrow. The guys have it covered and I hope to hell she knows what she’s doing because you of all people should know not to mix business with pleasure, and the attitude you sport, you’ll fuck up that friendship with her too and Kat, you need all the friends you can get.”

I turn around and lift my chin in the air.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that again.” I turn around before the first tear slips.

“That’s the fucking plan!”

I raise a finger in the air and walk to my car.

***

Darby fell asleep early and I was kind of scared she may be getting sick as well. Macey, Stephanie, and I share a bottle of wine to celebrate being ‘blissfully single’ and Stephanie’s new job. Macey helps her set up the Tindered app. She swipes right way too many times. I try to warn her but Macey gave me a look and I am in no mood to argue anymore today.

When she comes across Petepiper her face literally falls. “I’m going to bed.” She stands up and walks to my room.

Macey and I sit and watch her walk away.

“She sleeping in your room?” Macey whispers.

“Apparently she likes to cuddle,” I answer draining the bottle of wine into my glass. “Sorry, you want more?”

“No, I’m exhausted too. Where do you want me?”

“You can go snuggle up with-” I stop when she stands up and walks to the stairs.

“That’s all you, goodnight Kat.”

“Bitch,” I huff.

I clean up and take my time doing it. I lean against the counter and look at my phone. It dawns on me that my app hasn’t been pinging away with notifications so I hit the Matched app.

I scroll through thinking maybe Rider one has messaged. He hasn’t. I read through our last communication, the night of my ‘date’.

I decide to hit him up.

Kat: You pissed off at me or something?

I wait for a response and get nothing. I tiptoe into my room, past the bed and into the bathroom. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and decide against showering tonight.

Before plugging my phone in I hit the app again.

Still nothing.

Kat: Damn I was gonna ask you on a date Saturday. But apparently you’re either tied up with your FWB or you’re just a dick.(eggplant emoji)

I get in bed and I hear a sniff.

“You okay?”

“How stupid am I?” she says with a forced laugh.

“Not stupid Stephanie. You’re just a good person who trusted a man who fed you promises that I am sure one day he believed. I’m equally as sure that he is regretting everything he did to hurt you.”

“Thanks. Kat?” She hugs me and I laugh.

“What?”

“I am suddenly a man in the friend zone, laying on my back with a woman snuggled up against him who has no intention of fucking me.”

“I would be all over you if we were lesbians.”

We both laugh and then she gasps.

“I forgot to tell you. I think that book of Ricco’s has something to do with you. You’re the cat,” she yawns.

“No,” I laugh.

“Yep you are.”

I lay in bed thinking about how hard the boys tried to keep that book away from me. It was odd because it has been in plain sight for years. I needed to look in that damn book again and find out if her suspicions are correct and what all the other symbols mean.

RICCO

Natalia was loving school, but I wasn’t loving the fact that she was asleep in the backroom by five o’clock every damn night. Worked out good though, when Darby asked to take her home it was an easy no. She was already asleep and Darby was none the wiser. Kat gave me rotten looks every time and I gave her the same look I’ve been giving her since she stopped at the shit hole apartment.

Kat, what a fucking bitch she was being. Go figure, I was damn sure paying her no mind though.

Stephanie was working out like a charm. I told her that after Kat left. She grinned and went on about her merry way organizing some sort of customer database that Kat had started making but was too busy to finish because well, we didn’t have a Stephanie.

The database compiled every bit of information on them. Name, first and last, address, and email address. Birthdate and sex.

Sex.

Fuck.

I needed to get laid.

I was called by a neighbor of the house I owned. Good guy, real good fucking guy.

I hang up the phone, call Nicholas DeAngelo and ask that he get to my place because apparently the tenants are moving out a couple weeks early, and taking my appliances with them.

Natalia is asleep and it’s busy. Kat’s long been gone and Darby is with her.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping but, um, you should go,” Stephanie says with urgency in her voice.