Evie Ever After. Beth Ciotta

a year ago, after my ex, Michael, and I had separated, but I’d never really lived here. I’d been in too much of a funk to decorate. Then I’d just been oblivious. But after spending a week in Arch’s grandfather’s cluttered flat then time in my childhood home, not to mention a charming Victorian B and B, I just couldn’t warm to this cold, stark apartment.

      It was beyond depressing. It didn’t help that I lived alone. I’d spent most of the past month sleeping with Arch. But that had been while on assignment or on holiday. This, I thought, soaking in the earsplitting quiet, is my reality. “At least Dorothy had Toto.”

      I redialed Arch, wondering if I should get a cat.

      “Yeah?” Arch’s stock phone greeting.

      I replied midthought. “Whoever said ‘there’s no place like home’ was full of hooey.”

      “Dorothy Gale,” he said in his knee-melting accent. “Wizard of Oz. 1939.”

      I smirked. “I knew that. How could I not know that? It was a rhetorical statement.”

      “Ah.”

      “You’re grinning, aren’t you?”

      “Aye.”

      “Because I’m cheeky or because I said hooey?”

      “Take your pick, Sunshine.”

      I smiled. I wish you were here.

      “What’s wrong, lass?”

      Going through sexy Scot withdrawal. “It’s about Jayne. I’d feel better if I told you in person. I need your advice, Arch, and I need it soon.”

      “I can be there in…half an hour, yeah?”

      “I’ll be ready.” My mind jumped tracks. “Have you heard from Beckett?” Way to ruin a sexy exchange, Parish. Only I was genuinely worried about my boss, a man I considered a friend…or something.

      “He called a few minutes ago. Just landed in Philly.”

      Thank God. “And?”

      “Mission accomplished.”

      The pent-up ache in my chest eased. “Great. That’s…great.” Beckett was home safe and Chameleon was once again in good graces with the AIA. I pumped a fist in the air. Woo-hoo!

      “Evie.”

      “Yes?”

      “I miss you.”

      Okay. That was sweet. That was…unexpected. My heart skipped and raced. “I miss you, too.”

      “Answer the door naked, yeah?”

      Um. “Yeah. I mean, you bet. I mean…” Holy Smoke.

      “See you in thirty.”

      I could imagine his ornery grin, the one that made the backs of my knees sweat. I could imagine what he was going to do to me when I opened the door—hello—naked. I peeled off my sleepwear and hopped in the shower. Thirty minute countdown to creative sex. Yeah, baby, yeah.

      

      I’D JUST MOISTURIZED WHEN my cell rang. Naked and hot-to-trot, I adopted a Mae West drawl. “Thought about you when I was in the shower, Big Boy. Trust me. You don’t want to be late.”

      “It’s Nic.”

      “Oh! Sorry.” Mortified. I slipped into the purple terry-cloth robe hanging on the back of the door.

      “Whatever. Listen, Evie. We’ve got trouble. Zippo-the-Clown just called and Fannie’s Flowers is in a snit. Fourth time this month Jayne didn’t show on time. She has a scheduled telegram in less than an hour. I need you to get over there now and cover her butt. Otherwise she’ll lose her job. I’m off to corral our wayward friend. Pretty sure I know where to find her.”

      “Okay. I’m there.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Sure.”

      She signed off and I scrambled to dress. If I remembered right and I usually do, Jayne had taken a job with Fannie’s Flowers in order to make ends meet. Even though she was three years my junior, like me, she’d started losing casino bookings to younger, modelesque talent. It didn’t help that the once-popular character actor gigs were almost obsolete. Rather than nabbing a nine to five to keep afloat she’d resorted to singing telegrams. Something that went against my creative grain, but as Nic said, to each his own. Except Jayne was my friend and I’d do anything for her. Singing “Happy Birthday” to an office worker while dressed as Marilyn Monroe or a clown or—gak!—a chicken wasn’t going to kill me. Me, who’d once worked a high-roller Halloween party as PMS Pumpkin.

      I think I set some sort of record blow-drying my hair and applying makeup. I was dressed and out the door in fifteen minutes. I shoved on sunglasses and race-walked to my car while dialing Arch.

      “Yeah?”

      “I won’t be here when you get here. I mean, there’s been an emergency. Jayne. She’s flipping out or something. I don’t know. Anyway, I have to cover one of her gigs.”

      “Evie—”

      “I know. I’m sorry.” I whipped open the door to my beat-up Subaru and slid behind the wheel. “If I don’t do this she might lose her job and I would feel awful. I already feel awful, but I can’t get into that.” I keyed the ignition only the car didn’t start. “Oh, no.”

      “Evie—”

      I tried again. Dead. Of course, I hadn’t started my car in two weeks, plus it was old plus…“Dammit.”

      “Lass.”

      Someone tapped on my window scaring the bejeebers out of me. I gasped and smiled.

      Arch.

      First I noticed he’d shaved off that sexy goatee. I’d never seen him completely clean shaven. Before the goatee, he’d sported a perpetual five-o-clock shadow—also sexy. Not that a clean shave diminished his appeal. You know how some women look great in any hair color? Same difference. Any way you cut it, or um, shaved it, the man was gorgeous.

      He looked like a GQ model in his hip, casual wear. Like me, he was wearing jeans, only his looked pricey. He’d left the tails of his paisley oxford hanging out and the collar opened. I imagined ripping off that shirt, skimming my fingers over his chiseled abs, licking his sexy Celtic tattoo…I squeezed my legs together to suppress an erotic tingle. Get a grip, Evie. Think of Jayne. Right. I chucked my phone in my purse and rolled down the window. “You’re here,” I said, sounding surprised and breathless and, well, sort of stupid.

      Arch grinned and pocketed his phone.

      “My car won’t start.”

      “I’ll drive you.”

      “Thanks.” Honestly, I was happy for his company. I lived on Brigantine Island. Even though it was less than a ten minute drive to Atlantic City, it felt a world away. I felt semidisconnected here. If I didn’t see the casinos, I didn’t think about them. A blessing. I wish I could say those entertainment meccas conjured memories of the best times of my life. The incredible musicians I’d sung with. The wacky actress roles I’d nailed. Jeez, once I even sang backup for a famous boxer turned B headliner, and there was the time I’d been a featured swing dancer at a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert. But all I could focus on was the depressing fact that I was no longer “in demand.” In my current mind-set the casinos represented rejection. They made me feel old. I ached to let go, to move on. I had moved on. The past month of constant travel had been a welcome distraction. But I guess it had also been a form of evasion. Now that I was back in the city, my former insecurities and disillusions threatened to crush me.

      At least with Arch at the wheel, I could focus on him and not the cash cows that made me feel as if I’d been put out to pasture.

      “Wow,” I said