Page 39 of Time Served in New York
“Hook was feeling frisky but passed out about three seconds after we laid down”
I laughed at the look of frustration on Paula’s face and sighed. “It’s going to take everyone a week to recover once the wedding’s over.”
“If we don’t find them a chiropractor, they won’t make it a week,” Maylee said with a wince as Brea fell again. “Damn. Those women are gonna be hurting tomorrow.”
“Look at us,” Paula said as she nudged Matalie with her shoulder. “We’re the smart ones who didn’t risk it going out on the ice.”
“I triple dog dare you to go out there in your shoes and do a pirouette like a ballerina,” Sis said with a grin.
“Nope!” Paula said as she shook her head. “I’ll take all sorts of risks, but ending up in a full body cast is not my cup of tea.”
11.
BLUE
“It’s not the landing that gets ya, it’s all the acrobatics you do while you’re tryingnotto fall that do you in,” Hammer said over his cup of coffee. “If you’d have just let yourself relax, you’d have probably been just fine.”
“Jude, if you have any love for me at all, you’ll find a balcony and throw him off of it so I can watchhimbounce,” I growled as I glared at Hammer.
“I’ve been dying to do that for years,” Jude grumbled. Then, with a frown, he mimicked, “No fighting, Preacher! Don’t hit him, Preacher! Settle down, Preacher!” He sighed and, in his regular voice, said, “It gets monotonous.”
“How are you feeling, Blue?” Sis asked as she sat down across from me with her own breakfast plate.
“I fall to pieces . . .” Hammer started singing that old Patsy Cline song, and it was all I could do not to reach across the table and stab him with my fork. When I glared at him, he just grinned and took another bite of his omelet.
“I’m sore. How’s your mom?”
“She’s okay, I think. She was up and around earlier. Said her elbow hurts but the fall . . .”
“. . . and I can’t help falling . . .” I heard a growl when Hammer started singing Elvis and then realized it had come from me when Jude burst out laughing.
Sis managed to stifle her own laugh and asked, “What hurts the most?”
“Is being so close . . .” Hammer started singing, and I couldn’t help but stare at him in question. He kept going, and I tried to figure out what the hellthatsong had to do with me falling until Sis helped him with the chorus.
“And having so much to say and watching you walk away . . .” Sis belted out the lyrics to the Rascal Flatts song in perfect harmony with Hammer.
“He’s corrupting the children, Boss! I told you not to let him stick around!” Jude snapped.
“Okay, that was reaching,” I argued, interrupting Jude’s tirade.
“I keep on fallin’ . . .” Hammer managed a decent impression of Alicia Keys.
“There ya go,” I bitched. “Now I want to kill you again.”
“Can we go one single day without me having to separate you two like children?” Boss asked before he closed his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. “There’s a monkey on meth playing cymbals inside my skull and aliens trying to claw their way out of my eye sockets right now. If I get into the middle of your shit, everyone in this room is going to end up dead.”
“This might help you, sir,” Freda, one of the women from the hotel who always seemed to work the breakfast shift, said as she set a bottle of Gatorade next to Boss’s elbow. She put another in front of Hammer and slid one across the table to Jude with a smile.
“Thank you, Freda,” Jenn said as we smiled at her. “How did you know they might need that?”
“My sister, Shonda, works the front desk. She said the men were in quite a state when they got back yesterday, so I had one of the guys stock up,” Freda explained.
“Oh, I met Shonda!” Pandora said from her spot close to the end of the table. “So that means your sisters with Lorena?”
“Who’s Lorena?” Kitty asked.
“She’s the nice lady who brought food for Jared the other night when we were trying to get him to go to bed,” Pandora explained.
