“Cookie dough has many functions. It isn’t just for heartbreak and sister trouble. It’s also for when you’re freaking out about your love life,” I replied.

“I’ll tell you this,” Elvira announced, fanning out little slices of French baton on the plate next to fanned out little slices of apple all surrounding a gleaming, clean bunch of succulent grapes in the middle, “Hawk put me on radar, watched my every move for a year and a half and activated the troops when I caught trouble, there’d be no cookie dough in sight. I’d be on my knees next to the bed prayin’ to the good Lord, thankin’ him ‘cause he heard my words. Then I’d put on my little teddy, the purple one, looks good against my skin, and I’d get in bed and count down the minutes until he got home.”

“I wear nightshirts to bed,” I informed her. “Though, I do have a sexy caftan.”

Elvira twisted her neck to look at me. “Saw that caftan, hon, in your laundry. It was pretty nice. But Hawk strikes me as a satin and lace man.”

Hmm. It appeared Elvira was thorough when she went through my stuff to pack my bags.

“Is he a satin and lace man?” Tracy asked.

“No, he’s a take it as it comes man,” I answered. Or, more accurately, take it off because it’s in the way man.

Elvira grinned huge. “Mm hmm.”

I looked at Cam. “Camille. Cosmo.”

Cam lifted the stainless steel pitcher and started shaking.

“All right, I’m just gonna say things might have started out a bit slow,” Trace began with a screaming understatement, “but sometimes it takes men a little while, you know, to understand they want commitment.”

“Tell me about it,” Camille muttered, yanked off the top of the martini shaker and started pouring.

I bit the side of my lip and slid my eyes to Tracy.

Then I said, “Leo’s committed to you.”

“Unh-hunh,” Cam kept pouring.

“He totally loves you,” Tracy put in.

“Mm,” Cam mumbled, putting down the shaker and starting to hand glasses around.

“You got a man with commitment troubles, girl?” Elvira asked, plopping the wedge of pâté in the middle of some fanned out crackers.

“Five years together, four in the same house,” Camille answered.

“Oh boy,” Elvira muttered, using the breadknife to attack the wrap on the brie.

“I see good things, I see them soon, I feel it in my bones,” I quickly announced, taking my cosmo. “He’s close, Cam, I know it.”

“I know it too!” Trace added but Elvira was looking at me.

Then she looked at Cam. “I read people,” she stated, lifting the breadknife to her face and circling the blade an inch away from her skin as I held my breath. “Faces. They tell no lies. Like that TV show. I got the gift. And your girl here, she tells no lies. I ain’t one to blow sunshine, seein’ as I’ve known my share of commitment-phobes, so many I could write the Denver Directory of Commitment-Phobes, but she sees good things, she feels it in her bones, she’s your girl, she’s tellin’ no lies which means,” she stuck the breadknife in Cam’s face, “you give this boy some time.”

After Elvira laid down the law and Cam was staring at the knifepoint two inches from her face, I reached out, wrapped my hand around Elvira’s wrist and pulled her hand and the knife down. When I did, her eyes swung to me.

“Hawk has a rule about proper usage of knives in his house,” I muttered.

“I bet he does,” Elvira replied. “He got a rule about the proper usage of ninja stars?”

“Probably,” I muttered because this was actually probably true.

“Can I have a cosmo?” Trace asked and Cam finished handing them out.

“Boards’re done,” Elvira announced, plonking the brie next to the grapes. “Let’s retire to the sittin’ room.”

The girls grabbed the big plates of food and I went to the shelves to get little plates and we all moseyed over to the seating area. Cam and Tracy took recliners. Elvira and I sat at opposite ends of the couch. The food sat on the coffee table in front of us and we all stared at it partially because no one wanted to touch anything without Elvira’s consent and partially because she was right, it was about presentation and she definitely had flair. The food looked great. Good enough to be photographed for a magazine.

“Well?” Elvira asked. “What you all waitin’ for? Dig in.”

We all fell on the food like vultures.

I was shoving a slice of French baton smothered in red onion marmalade, pâté and topped with gherkin slices into my mouth when Elvira observed, “I shoulda bought some of those little spreaders. With the fancy handles. Crate and Barrel had some good ones. You got brie and pâté and kickass stoneware, you need fancy-handled spreaders.”

Hawk’s cement, iron and brick warehouse lair could handle slim-stemmed, sleek martini glasses but I figured it would expel fancy-handled spreaders.

I didn’t tell Elvira this.

Instead, I asked the room (which meant Tracy and Camille since Elvira didn’t really know me), “Do you think I live in my head?”

Tracy and Cam instantly looked across the coffee table at each other.

“That means yes,” Elvira translated through a mouth full of brie and apple wedge.

I looked at Trace then I looked at Cam. “You do?”

“Girl –” Cam started.

“It’s okay,” Tracy said quickly. “We all do what we need to do to protect ourselves and you need to live in your dream world.”

“I don’t live in a dream world,” I said but this wasn’t true. A lot of the time I did. It just wasn’t all of the time. “I live my life. I go out. I have fun. I put myself out there.”

“Leo calls you Queen Crash and Burn,” Cam announced and my eyes went to her.

“What?”

“Queen Crash and Burn. You get all dressed up, go out, smile, chat, flirt… then it’s all, ‘Hey! Great talking to you! Later!’ No number. No nothin’. They think you’re into them and they’re gonna get them some and off you trot and you don’t look back. Queen Crash and Burn.”

Uh… wow.

“I do that?” I asked but I knew I did. I didn’t know I did until just then, having it pointed out to me, but when it was, I knew I did it.

“Totally,” Tracy confirmed on a whisper.

“Did Delgado say you lived in your head?” Cam asked and I nodded. “Why?”

“We were having a… discussion. I told him I needed to think about what he’d said and then he said I didn’t need to think, I live in my head, I shut things out. He says I haven’t given him me. He says I have a hand held up, fending him off,” I answered.

Tracy and Camille’s eyes went back to each other.

“See you do that too,” Elvira noted.

“I’m open and friendly!” I declared.

Cam sighed, sat back and took a sip of cosmo.

Preparing me.

Oh shit.

Then she stated, “Babe, I know you’ve had a lot goin’ on the last week but have you had a chance to think about what’s gone down with you and Delgado?”

“Yes,” I replied instantly. “I think about it all the time.”

“And what you come up with, hon?” Elvira asked.

“I don’t know, I have to think about it more,” I answered, Elvira rolled her big eyes and she did this at Tracy. Tracy giggled.

Crap! I was living in my head again.

“Okay,” I asked Cam, knowing I was living dangerously, “tell me what you think about it.”

“I will,” Cam replied.

Great.

Welp! I’d asked for it and in pure Cam style, she was going to give it to me.

“Has it occurred to you that, after all that time doin’ nothin’ but the nasty, you spoke to this guy once, once, and he was all up in your business?” Cam asked.

No. No, that hadn’t occurred to me.

“No,” I whispered.

“So, say you opened your mouth for more than just to do a little somethin’-somethin’ when he visited you at night, where do you think you’d be right about now?” Cam continued.

Oh my God.

I didn’t reply but Camille answered for me. “I’d say right where you are, babe.”

Oh. My. God.

“I –” I started.

“You’ve had that hand held up for a year and a half, Gwennie,” Trace said quietly.

“Mm hmm,” Elvira mumbled into her cosmo.

God! I hated it when Hawk was right!

“Do you… do you…,” I stammered, “think I should take down that hand?”

“Yes,” Tracy said instantly.

“Absolutely,” Elvira added her vote.

“Jury’s still out on that one,” Cam replied, got up and declared the discussion was over, it was time for me to sort myself out and she did this by announcing, “I’m making more cosmos.” Then she glided into the kitchen on her four inch heels.

I leaned forward and grabbed a bunch of grapes and a bigger bunch of assorted chocolates. I needed to think about all this.

Or maybe, I didn’t.

Shit.

Cam made cosmos, we drank, we ate and I really wanted to bring up some of the other stuff that Hawk said, mostly because Elvira was there, she said she’d worked for him for seven years and she might provide insight. However, Elvira also needed to keep herself in killer sweater dresses and fire engine red suede boots so I didn’t want to get her into trouble, or alternately water boarded should she gossip about her boss. Therefore I kept my questions to myself.

I also did this because, bottom line, I should ask Hawk.

I heard the earsplitting creak of the garage door going up and the room went wired. This was coming from Tracy because she was excited for me that Hawk was home. This was also coming from Elvira because she was excited to see me interact with Hawk. This was further coming from Cam because she wanted to dissect him with her awesome mental powers and decide how she would cast judgment. And last, this was coming from me because I was like Tracy; I was excited Hawk was home.

Another creak came meaning the garage door was going down then the inner door opened and in he prowled under four sets of female eyes. I was looking over my shoulder at him and noting he was not self-conscious with four sets of female eyes watching him. He was Hawk, confident, assured, graceful, powerful, all of it exactly the reason he first caught my eye.

Oh boy.

He walked right to the back of the couch behind me and I tipped my head back to watch him do it.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

He bent at the same time his hand swept my hair off my shoulder, across my neck to my other shoulder, his head dipped in and I felt his lips at the skin behind my ear.

Lips still there he whispered, “Hey babe.”

“Mm hmm,” I heard Elvira mumble and I processed this but only minutely mainly because I was processing my belly flutter coupled with a quiver in a private place.

He straightened, his hand curled around my neck and he took in the girl posse with his black eyes.

“Ladies,” he muttered.

“Hey,” Tracy breathed.

“Yo, Hawk,” Elvira greeted.

Camille just looked at him.

He let go of my neck, rounded the couch and I scrambled to scoot away as he sat between me and the armrest. One of his arms moved to wrap around my shoulders, pulling me to him as his other hand came out and nabbed my cosmo. I turned my head and watched him sip from the martini glass. As I did my mind warred, one faction making my belly feel squishy that he was drinking from my glass, the other faction wanting to reclaim my cosmo before he drank any more.

It was no surprise which one won out.

“Do you want your own?” I asked pointedly.

“Yours’ll do,” he ignored my point, handed the glass back to me and then leaned forward to grab some leftover apple slices. Then he leaned back, casually tossing one in his mouth.

I turned to the girl posse and explained, “Hawk’s body is his temple. In about a minute, he’ll go into anaphylactic shock when the vodka processes through his system. No need for alarm, I have the adrenalin injection handy.”

Tracy giggled again. Elvira laughed right out. Hawk did his manly, deep, amused chuckle and even Cam grinned.

“Mo says you left at three thirty,” Hawk remarked when the laughter died and I looked at him to see his eyes were on Elvira.

I looked at Elvira and she was nodding. “Sho’ did.”

I bit my lip and looked at Tracy.

“Is this gonna be a creatively concealed line item?” Hawk asked as he leaned forward and grabbed some stranded grapes, his head tipping to the decimated food boards.

“I’ve set up Gwen as her own cost center,” Elvira replied, unruffled.

My eyes got big.

“Probably a good idea,” Hawk muttered, leaning back.