It was probably Brock, though why I thought this, I didn’t know. He said to be there at six and although I took time out for my kickboxing class and extended that with a side trip to the mall, I still left the bakery early to go home and get ready. The kids who worked for me were good, and the shelves, displays, and cake stands were stocked with plenty of goodies to see them through so I didn’t have a problem doing this and did it often. So it was now two to six. I wasn’t late. I was actually, if you got down to it, early.

Maybe there was a change of plans. In the four months we were seeing each other, this happened. Not regularly. Brock didn’t usually miss seeing me and if he had to change plans, it usually meant he had to see me later or leave early but it was rare he’d cancel.

In fact, thinking about it, I didn’t recall that ever happening.

Therefore, curious, I pulled out my phone and saw it said “Unknown Caller.”

I touched the screen as I felt my brows draw together, put it to my ear, and greeted, “Hello.”

“Yo, bitch. You got Elvira.”

I blinked at my dashboard.

Then I said, “Uh… hey.”

“Uh… hey right back at ’cha. Listen, your homegirl gave me your number ’cause I called her ’cause Gwen and me were doin’ a little lookin’ around in Cherry Creek durin’ my extended lunch break and we saw you in the lingerie section of Nordstrom’s.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Okay.”

“So?” she asked, and I felt my brows draw together again when she said no more.

“So?” I asked back.

“So, what gives?”

“What gives?”

“Yeah, what gives? You were drinkin’ cosmos with us in Stepford country when we were talkin’ ’bout your bad-news boy and I do not think it bodes well two days later that you’re in the lingerie section of Nordstrom’s,” she stated, then announced, “This here’s a phone intervention.”

“A phone intervention?”

“A phone intervention. See, I work for Hawk Delgado and Hawk’s Gwen’s man, which, incidentally, is why I’m allowed to take extended lunch breaks in the lingerie section of Nordstrom’s with the company credit card. But, anyway, Gwen pumped Hawk for intel about your bad-news boy and so did I and we put our heads together. Hawk… well, he says your boy is bad news, not that we didn’t know that already. But Hawk agreeing, considering he’s Hawk, confirms it.”

Damn it all to hell.

It was only me who could run into a well-intentioned but nosy, inappropriately meddling and slightly frightening black woman at a really bad baby shower and it was only Martha who would give her her number and then, in turn, give her mine.