Instead, I gave him a look, turned, huffed off toward my still-ringing phone, and made a mental note that huffing off in heels seemed way more dramatic than doing it in Rothy’s (or the like).

I pulled my phone out of the bag, saw it said DANNY on the screen (obviously, I’d changed his name in my phone, though I’d managed to refrain from changing it to MY HOT GUY COMMANDO BOYFRIEND), and all at once, I plopped down, leaned forward to unstrap my shoes and took the call.

This was unwise.

It meant I lost my balance and nearly fell flat on my face.

But thankfully I shifted my weight fast enough to my ass that didn’t happen.

“Hey,” I greeted once I was safely seated.

“Hey,” he replied. “What’s up?”

I felt a gooey feeling in my stomach because he did this. He called just to touch base. Connect while we were apart. Find out what was going on. How I was doing. Discuss dinner options. Reaffirm that he did not want me to move his plates to the cupboard closer to the dishwasher (which was insane, you just took them out of the machine, reached up, and boom, plate put away—he had spices and oils there, which was madness—he said he prepared food in that zone, so he needed the spices and oils to be handy, and although this seemed logical, he was still wrong).

“We’re at the Nordstrom shoe department,” I told him.

“Is Elvira there with you?”

Although I’d heard this name, and knew she worked with the team, I did not know this woman, so I could not fathom why Mag was asking this question.

I still answered, “No.”

“I think there’s a chair there, upholstered in purple, that’s reserved for her.”

Ah.

So Elvira liked shoes.

Apparently, a lot.

“And that’s the chair she was sitting in when her husband proposed to her,” Mag carried on.

Ah.

So Elvira might like shoes but a trip to Nordstrom for her was a sentimental journey.

I grinned and slid the first shoe off. “It’s just the girls and Axl and I.”

“This means Axl didn’t tell her where you were.”

I kept grinning but said nothing.

“It also means Axl probably wants to shoot me right now,” he went on.

I continued grinning and did not attempt to deny this truth as I went after the buckle on the other shoe and asked, “What are you up to?”

“Fighting the urge to find Mo and hold him at gunpoint to tell me where they disappeared Snag so I can find that asshole and strangle him, because I got at least another week of being benched because of this shoulder and sitting around on my ass is driving me up the wall.”

I sat still, one hand with the phone to my ear, bent over, the fingers of the other hand on the strap of my shoe, and I said nothing.

This went on so long, Mag called, “Evie?”

“What does ‘disappeared’ mean?” I whispered.

It was Mag’s turn to be silent.

Oh boy.

“Do I not want to know?” I asked.

“No, you don’t want to know,” he answered.

Oh boy!

Moving on.

“We’re almost done here,” I shared. “I gotta purchase my sex shoes and then we’re going to Fortnum’s. Can you get a break and come over? I’ll order you a coffee so it’ll be all ready for you.”

Mag was again silent.

Therefore, I called, “Danny?”

“What are sex shoes?”

Did I add the word “sex” to “shoes”?

I did.

“You’ll find out,” I muttered.

It was Mag sounding happy, very happy, when he replied, “Pleased as fuck you’re not on at Smithie’s tonight.”

I was too.

What I was not pleased about was that I was down with Mag’s plan to get me where I wanted to be with work and education and life, but this meant I would soon be putting in notice.

I’d taken off the second shoe and was replacing them in their box when the sales assistant, sniffing out a commission, materialized out of thin air.

I handed the box to the assistant and he floated off as I hastily pulled on my footies, shoved my feet into my Chucks and tied them.

All this I did, still connected to Mag, but I did it silently, deep in thought and with the phone pressed to my ear and shoulder.

“Evie, you there?” I heard in my ear.

I grabbed my bag, got up, and just in case any of the girls, who had at this point dispersed widely to peruse the wares, could hear, whispered, “I was just thinking of the impending task of putting in notice at the club.”

“You’re not gonna lose them, not any of them, honey. You just won’t have to be naked when you’re around them anymore,” Mag replied.

One could say that would be good.

I was walking to the register as I shared, “I wish I’d made friends with them before I was imminently going to quit. I mean, we were friends. But, you know, now we’re shopping friends which means we’re friends friends.”

“I know, baby,” he murmured soothingly.

“It probably would have been more fun to be naked around them if we’d gotten to the point of friends friends.”

“Gonna have to share some truths with my girl,” he muttered.

“Sorry?”

“Evie, baby, honey…”

Oh no.

It was the double-barreled endearment, but this one didn’t sound like it was gonna go all that well.

“…you know I’m into you,” he continued. “Way into you. And I’m a one-woman kind of man. You being that one woman, you get that?”

“I get it,” I said, pulling my credit card out of my wallet awkwardly since I was doing it one handed, at the same time wondering why he was telling me this, at the same time kinda fretting that he was telling me this at all because I already sorta assumed it.

“But your friends are hot.”

I suddenly needed to choke down a giggle.

Mag kept talking.

“So, just sayin’, words like ‘would have been fun to be naked around them,’ especially about a minute after you told me you’re buyin’ sex shoes, uh…that’s a no-go.”

I couldn’t hold my giggle back and thus let it loose at the same time I asked curiously, “Which one would be your first choice?”

“You actually asking that shit?”

“Axl, Auggie, Boone, and that’s a tough call and I reserve the right to switch the order and do it frequently, depending on who’s currently being sweet to me and/or keeping me alive.”

He burst out laughing.

I shoved my card in the reader, smiling and listening to him do it, and when he was done, I prompted, “Well?”

“Hattie, Pepper, Ryn,” he answered.

Surprising.

“Really?”

“I guess I got a thing for the shy ones,” he said.

“I’m not shy,” I declared, pulling my card out of the reader.

“Baby,” he said in a voice that made me want to strap on my sex shoes right then, beam wherever he was, and make him jump me, “you gave yourself a concussion slamming your head in the counter going after some runaway lip gloss the first night you met me.”

“I’m klutzy, not shy.”