“Admit it,” I said. “You just wanted to come here so you and Drew could coo and slobber all over each other.”
“You really want to say that in front of the person who makes your martinis?” asked Drew, who’d walked over to where we were seated.
“Ignore her, she’s in a cranky mood,” Bailey said. “We’ll have the usual. How was your day?”
“Same-o. But it looks like the loan’s coming through. Just waiting for the broker to okay the deal on the space,” Drew said.
Drew was on the brink of realizing his dream of opening his own upscale bar. Though his place would be within walking distance, nothing beat the convenience of living an elevator ride away. Yet another perk I enjoyed as a permanent resident of the Biltmore.
“How’re you doing? Any leads?” he asked Bailey.
Bailey ran a hand through her short blonde hair and sighed. “Nothing that blows my skirt up at the moment.”
Drew gave her a lascivious look.
I pointed to Drew and Bailey. “No. You may not do that in front of me-” Drew went off to fix our drinks when my cell phone buzzed. It was Graden. The sound of his voice immediately brought a smile to my face. I turned away to take the call. We exchanged brief updates on our day-something I’d sorely missed during our breakup.
“I know you’ll be running hard on this case, but if you catch a quiet pocket, want to do dinner sometime this week?” he asked.
“Love to. If my elopement hunch plays out, this could wrap up pretty fast. Want to play it by ear for this weekend?”
“Sounds perfect. And you’ll let me know if you need anything in the meantime?”
The cool thing was, he didn’t just mean he’d pick up my dry cleaning; he meant knocking around investigative leads and ideas. It was one of the nice perks of dating a smart cop. But it also had a downside. Graden had an obsessive need to know everything about everyone. Bailey and Toni said it was what made him such a great cop, and there was no doubt they were right. But that particular trait was about as incompatible with my privacy issues as you could get. Graden swore he could rein himself in for my sake. Only time would tell. But right now, things were good and getting better by the day. When I ended the call and turned back around, I saw that Drew had delivered our drinks and was about to put our steaks down. Both he and Bailey were looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“What?” I asked.
“Good phone call from the boyfriend, I see,” Drew said.
