Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

you’ve made me miss Cole Early on the news again.” He sighed dramatically. “It’s not fair. You’ll get to go home and sleep in your bed after he’s slept in it, and park your little tushie in the same chair he parked his in, and shower in the same bathtub he used…” He shivered deliciously for effect. “And I can’t even watch him on TV.”

A blast of heat exploded in Lulu’s midsection at Eddie’s words. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean I’ll go home and sleep in my bed and sit in my chairs and shower in my tub after he’s done all those things?”

Eddie’s eyes widened in panic. “I didn’t say that out loud. Did I say that out loud?”

“Yes,” she told him, straightening on the sofa. “You did. What did you mean?”

“Nothing,” he quickly countered. A little too quickly, actually. “I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t even say that. You never heard it.”

“I heard it, too,” Bree said, moving to the sofa to sit on the other side of Eddie.

As if of one mind, she and Lulu both moved in closer, squeezing him to the spot between them. When he tried to stand, they each clamped a hand over his forearms and pulled him back down.

“Eddie, what did you do?” Bree asked.

He closed his mouth tightly, folding his lips inward and said nothing. Nor did he look at either woman. He simply fixed his gaze straight ahead.

“Eddie…” Lulu said more adamantly.

He lifted a hand to his mouth, mimicked the zipping of his lip, and dropped it again.

Lulu wasn’t about to let it go that easily. “Are you telling me you rented my house to Cole Early?”

This time when Eddie lifted a hand, it was to pretend he was locking the zipper in place. Then, for added emphasis, he tossed the imaginary key over his shoulder.

Bree got up from the sofa, went behind it to pick up the invisible key, then returned to both unlock and unzip Eddie’s lip. Then she smacked him upside the head with her—very real—hand. “Come on, Eddie,” she cajoled. “We know you rented a house to him, because Lulu saw him in your office.”

“And he showed up right when I was dropping off the key,” Lulu remembered, “and you told me my timing was perfect. I thought you were renting it to the guy in front of me. But it was Cole Early, wasn’t it?”

“You know I can’t divulge that information,” he said. “Some of my clients are celebrities and major players in the industry. If it gets out that I’m telling people where they’re staying, that’ll be the end of the Derby rental arm of Hot Properties. And a huge chunk of my annual income, too,” he added.

“Oh, come on, Eddie,” Bree said. “You’re among friends here.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not telling you anything about any of my clients. Especially who’s renting Lulu’s house. If I reveal that information, the next thing I know, there’s an angry, torch-bearing mob of time-share Realtors on my front porch demanding my head.”

“Yeah,” Bree agreed derisively. “And God knows there’s nothing scarier than an angry, torch-bearing mob of people in ugly blazers hounding you.”

“But, Eddie,” Lulu said, the heat in her belly swelling to panic when she thought about Cole living in her house and cavalierly using her things. “Cole Early is a party animal. He’s probably completely trashed my place by now. He’s probably having wild parties every night. Drinking and smoking and carousing. He might even be doing drugs. You know how those people from southern California are.”

“Hey, my aunt Mimi lives in Encino, and the only drug she ever does is Dulcolax,” Eddie objected. “Besides, Cole Early can’t be having wild parties at your house,” he added dismissively. “You’ve seen him on the news every night. He’s always at someone else’s party. I mean…” He quickly backpedaled. “If it’s Cole Early staying at your house—which I’m not saying it is—then he isn’t having parties there every night.”

“Then he’s probably taking home all those sleazy women he’s with at those other parties and…and…and…doing things with them in my house. In my bed. Things that are probably illegal in Kentucky. This is still the Bible Belt, you know.”

Eddie arched his brows indignantly at that.

“If there’s illegal stuff going on at my house,” Lulu said, “I need to know about it.”

Eddie thrust his hand into the pocket of his blue jeans and pulled out his keys, then dangled them in front of Lulu. “Darling, if there’s illegal stuff like that going on at your house, you need to rush home and be a part of it. Take my car. It’s faster than that little bug thing you drive.”

Lulu stuck her tongue out at him.

“That’s a good start,” he said with a laugh. “But there’s so much more you need to learn. And I can’t think of a better teacher than Cole Early.”

“Aha!” Bree cried. “Then you admit he’s the one staying in Lulu’s house.”

Eddie expelled a long sigh of resignation. But he only said, “I’m not saying he is, and I’m not saying he isn’t.”

It was the equivalent of saying yes as far as Lulu was concerned. Because if it wasn’t Cole Early staying at her house, Eddie would have said so. Not that she needed even that much verification at this point.

“Eddie!” she exclaimed. “How could you do that? How could you rent my house…my house that I’ve worked so hard on refurbishing…with my bare hands…for more than a year…How could you let someone like Cole Early go in and turn the place into party central?”

“Lulu, I’m sure it’s fine,” Eddie said in a placating voice. “The guy’s too busy being out and about to do any harm to your place.”

“How do you know?”

Eddie said nothing.

“Guys like that have no respect for other people’s property,” Lulu said. “Guys like that never think about anyone but themselves. Guys like that don’t care who they run roughshod over.”

Eddie met her gaze levelly.