Page 9 of Reckless
She stared back at me. Cool. Collected. Silent.
That was one thing that I would never believe if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Hannah Spencer with her mouth shut.
“What are you doing here, little Spencer?” I asked and sat right next to her. “I thought my sister wanted to see me and yet here you are. Again. Is that some elaborate scheme to make me take you out?” I knew I shouldn’t go there because of our history. Clem knew nothing about it. And I wanted to keep it that way. It wasn’t wise to irritate the woman who could rat me out, but wisdom wasn’t my forte.
“I see your ego is intact.”
“Unlike my sense of humor,” I said, referring to her words about me not being funny. I could accept a lot of insults, mostly because they would be accurate, but boring I was definitely not.
A hint of a smile appeared on her puffy pink lips, but she covered it up, determined to prove to me I would fail in making her laugh.
“Why are we at a table for six? Aren’t we waiting just for my my sister and her boyfriend?”
“Fiancé,” Hannah corrected me. “And no. Someone else is coming.”
“Not my pesky neighbor, right? Because I’m not answering his phone calls either, but I am not as fond of him as I am of Clem.”
The waiter came and I ordered a scotch. I remember how Hannah did the same last week. She wanted to appear tough. There was a glass of wine in front of her now. I presumed that was what she usually drank.
“Why is your neighbor calling you?” Hannah asked and though she tried to cover up the curiosity in her tone, her eyes shone with anticipation of a good story. She reached for her glass. I waited for her to tilt it and take a sip, then I answered.
“I drugged him.” She spat her wine back into her glass in a not at all ladylike fashion. Her eyes were huge. “Relax,” I waved my hand in the air. “I gave him pot brownies. He starts walking around his apartment at seven every morning. With his cane. I need my beauty sleep,” I pointed at my face while I examined hers. I liked the way her expression changed from curious to shocked to enraged.
“You drugged an elderly man?”
“No, he’s blind.”
“Jesus, Tyler!”
I couldn’t keep it together anymore. I laughed at her outrage.
“I’m messing with you, Spencer. I didn’t drug him. He just wants me to do him a favor.”
Hannah let out a loud breath. “You got me.”
“I know.”
She finally let a smile form on her lips. “What kind of a favor does he want from you?”
“Something needs to be put together. I don’t care.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
“Why should I do it?”
“To help a neighbor?”
“How altruistic of you, little Spencer. Let me know how that worked out for you, thirty years from now.”
I hit a nerve there, because she tore her gaze away from my face and looked at her wine as if she was trying to make the glass move with the power of her mind. The waiter brought me my scotch and left us alone again.
“So? Who else is joining us tonight?” I changed the subject. Hannah looked at the empty chair on her other side and answered my question.
“My boyfriend.”
So Spencer had a boyfriend. Why wouldn’t she? She was beautiful. She used to be smart and funny, and if she hadn’t lost her wits, she was actually a good girlfriend material. For someone who wanted a girlfriend.
I made a show of looking at the empty seat she eyed a moment ago.
