Read Dead and Breakfast (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 2) for Free Online Page B

closed my eyes and I was back against that wall in the hallway with Dante pressed all over me. I felt his mouth all over my face and I closed my eyes swallowing the hot liquid, feeling it spiral down, then shoot a heat wave right back up my spine. I was going over every detail of that encounter with him in my mind, adrift in an erotic, sensual moment…when a voice that sounded like the fingernails on a chalkboard kicked me out of my warm and fuzzy state.
    “BRANDY ALEXANDER! Why as I live and breathe, is it really you? What are you doing here?” screeched the voice I knew to be my cousin Pootie in that nanosecond before opening my eyes and seeing her round, sweaty face in front of mine. Pootie was my annoying childhood nemesis and goofy cousin. When my eyes popped open I was back in one hundred per cent humidity sweating instead of feeling the glowing heat of my Dante moment.
    When we were kids, Pootie got everything she wanted because she was the only child, and adopted . I’m sure my mother believed I was the reason Pootie was an orphan in the first place and she never missed an opportunity to remind my sister and I of it, “Poor Pootie, she’s adopted. Be nice to Poor Pootie, share your toys with her…she’s adopted. Poor Pootie, give the bigger piece of the candy bar…she’s adopted. Poor Pootie, blah, blah, blah, Poor Pootie.” The facts were Poor Pootie got to wear a bra first (even though she didn’t need it to this very day), Poor Pootie got to drive first, Poor Pootie got her own car first, demanding a brand new convertible, not the second hand clunker I was happy to receive. Poor Pootie got to date first, and on and on. Poor Pootie and her sense of entitlement always made me want to slap her by way of saying hello. My sister felt the same way.
    Now, I had let her covertly sneak up on me while I had been distracted in my hot zone. As kids, when our mothers took us all shopping on Canal Street at D. H. Holmes, we were forced to hold hands with Pootie so she wouldn’t get lost. No one worried if my sister and I got lost. My sister and I would run away from her and hide inside one of the long winter coats hanging on the wall in the men’s department. My mother would have our names called out over the department store loudspeaker as lost children. Some well meaning sales clerk would find us and return us to her.
    The second my eyes snapped open I imagined myself saying “No, Pootie, you think you see me. This is your imagination. I’m not really here. Are you on medication?”
    Instead, I refrained from an eye roll and kept my face void of all expression as I stood up saying, “Nice to see you, but gotta run. I’ve got to get back to my office.”
    “Your office? Where are you working? Is it close to here, maybe we can have lunch? I work right across the street. Wait up, I want to talk to you,” Pootie huffed and puffed as she tried to keep up with my giant strides out the door as fast as her short fat legs could propel her, following me down the steps and to my parked car.
    I didn’t want her to follow me back across the street into Central Lockup asking a million of her mindless questions only to run to the nearest phone to call my mother and tell her where she’d seen me. That was probably going to happen anyway. I didn’t want to give her more ammo to use against me, so I walked to where I’d parked my car, got in and locked the door. I looked at her through the driver’s side window and tapped my watch with the other hand mouthing the words, ‘gotta go.’ I waved goodbye, drove around the block and parked in a different lot. You can’t be too careful when trying to avoid Pootie. I remembered she worked somewhere in the area either at the police station or a bail bondsman office, so waiting in Central Lockup was not the safest place to avoid seeing anymore of Pootie. I would need to be more covert.
    It was late, around 11:00 at night when Julia was finally released. I had been there waiting