Chapter 1
Step 1 – Throw the rules for being a lady out the window ~ Phoebe’s rules for becoming a better person
I giggle as I watch Hailey’s fiancé and father play tug-a-war with her. I startle and look around to see where the sound of laughter is coming from. Surely, it’s not me. I may be laughing more since I took a job with Hailey, but it’s not an everyday occurrence. Heck, it’s not an every week occurrence. At least not yet. But things, they are a changing.
“It laughs!” My friend, co-worker, and klutziest girl in the world, Suzie, proclaims before jumping from her chair. She raises her hands in the air and promptly smacks the person next to her. “Oops!” is all she says as she dances away. I should add she’s also completely oblivious.
Suzie and Hailey own the PI firm, You Cheat, We Eat, where I’m currently interning to become a private investigator. I still can’t believe it. Me? A PI? I’m sure stranger things have happened, but I wouldn’t know what.
Slightly more than a year ago, I’d never even held a job before. And now I’m doing my best to become a private investigator. Maybe I should have started with something a bit easier than PI, like say telephone receptionist, but Hailey and Suzie didn’t ask questions about my background or why I needed a job despite my fancy clothes. Plus, they pay me in cash. I couldn’t say yes fast enough.
Suzie returns and grabs my hand. “Come on. We need to congratulate Hailey.”
Hailey’s boyfriend, Aiden, proposed to her tonight in front of everyone. Sigh. It was super romantic. Hailey is a total drama geek, so Aiden made us all dress up in Regency era clothing à la Jane Austen time. He was supposed to propose like Darcy proposed to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, but Hailey kept correcting everything he did apparently, she’s not only a drama geek but a drama perfectionist. Eventually, he gave up and dropped to his knee.
Suzie drags me to the stage where Hailey is standing with a smile stretched from ear to ear on her face. Suzie jumps on stage and since she refuses to let my hand go no matter how much I protest, I find myself on the stage as well. My heart starts to pound. I do not like being the center of attention. Especially not now. I scan the room, but no one is looking our way. Phew.
“Congratulations!” Suzie shouts and tackles Hailey. Suzie is a munchkin at a mere five-feet-two, but she has no problem taking down Hailey despite the woman being half a foot taller than her. I manage to disentangle my hand in time to remain on my feet.
“I’m happy for you!” Suzie shouts and Hailey cringes. Suzie has one volume – ear shattering loud.
Aiden comes to his fiancé’s rescue. He hauls Suzie to her feet before helping Hailey up and pulling her into his arms.
I clear my throat. “Congratulations, Hailey. I’m happy for you.” I may no longer believe in love and marriage and all that icky stuff, but I am happy for her. Aiden is the perfect man for her, and she’s been crushing on him for decades. She deserves her happily ever after.
Plus, Aiden is a total hottie. At six-foot-three with dark hair and olive skin, he looks like he stepped off the cover of a romance novel of some Greek holiday romantic tale. Of course, Hailey is no slouch in the looks department either. She’s always complaining about her lack of boobs and bootie, but her lithe body makes her look like a dancer despite her uniform of ripped jeans and shitkicker boots. How anyone manages to look graceful while constantly wearing chunky boots is beyond me, but she does.
“Oh.” Suzie rubs her hands together. “We should drink champagne to celebrate. I’ll get some.” She rushes off forgetting she’s on an elevated stage. Instead of taking the steps down, she walks right off the edge and ends up face down on the floor.
Hailey sighs and starts to move to her friend. I stop her with a wave of my hand.
“I got her.”
By the time I’ve walked down the stairs, Suzie is already back on her feet.
“What happened?” she asks as she looks around in a daze.
“You decided you can fly. Big surprise. You can’t.”
Her mouth drops open. “Were you snarky with me?” She sniffs and places a hand over her heart. “Our girl is growing up too fast. Before you know it, she’ll be off chasing boys and drinking at frat parties.”
Jokes on her. I will not be chasing boys ever again. Nope. The male gender is nothing but trouble. As for frat parties? Been there. Done that. Except for the drinking. Nope. Drinking is for ‘men and boys, not ladies’. Lord forbid if I were to act unladylike.
We walk to the bar where Hailey’s uncles have congregated, although ‘uncles’ isn’t technically correct. Lenny, Barney, Wally, and Sid are Hailey’s dad’s Army buddies. They helped raise Hailey since her mom took off when she was twelve years old. Is it wrong I envy Hailey for not having a mom around? Yeah, probably.
“What’s the difference between a wife and a job?” Barney, the self-proclaimed funny guy of the group, asks. “After ten years, a job still sucks.” He guffaws and raises his hand for a fist pump. I wrinkle my nose at his fist. Do I look like the kind of woman who does fist pumps?
“Change the word wife to husband and I’m with you,” I mumble under my breath at a volume no one can hear.
Suzie’s eyes widen as she looks at me. “Have you been married, Phoebe?”
Oh crap. It’s never good to give Suzie a hint about my previous life. The woman is positively obsessed with figuring out my past. I stare her straight in the eyes and lie. “No.” Thanks to my past she’s dying to know about, I’m an expert in lying.
“Oh.” She frowns. Yep, my lying skills are unmatched.
Before she gets a chance to ask more questions, I announce I need the facilities. Lucky for me, Suzie is not the type of woman who insists on going to the restroom with her friends. I try not to run as I escape down the hallway to the restroom where I hide in a stall.
Phew. That was a close call. I need to learn to keep my big mouth shut. It was easy enough when I first met Hailey’s family. Her uncles and her dad are super intimidating. I don’t know what they did in the military, but their body language screams don’t mess with us. I needed no reminder to keep myself to myself. But as I’ve gotten to know them, I’ve realized they’re all a bunch of big old teddy bears. Teddy bears who can kill a man with their bare hands, I remind myself.
I repeat my mantra to myself several times. I am Phoebe Adams. I am a strong woman. I am a survivor. Once I’ve said the mantra enough to convince myself it’s true, I stand and exit the restroom.
I walk down the hallway with my head bowed, my mind full of all the things Hailey has to look forward to. Things I will never have. Marriage, children, happiness. I threw those things away. Well, not the happiness part. My past and happiness do not belong in the same sentence.
Too busy wallowing in self-pity, I miss the man standing at the end of the hallway, blocking the entrance to the bar. I run smackdab into him. “Oh, sorry,” I say and try to move around him.
His hand grasps my upper arm to stop me. “Phoebe, isn’t it?”
A shiver runs down my spine at the sound of his deep voice. I look up and gasp. Shit. Shit. Shit. This man is dangerous. I can feel it. I met him a few months ago when he approached me at the bar and asked for my name. When I told him my name was Phoebe Adams, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. I was convinced I’d been found out, but I haven’t seen the man since. I thought I was in the clear. I guess I was wrong.