Mr. Mysterious In Black by S. Ann Cole Read Free Book Online

presence and in his absence that Tev is bad for you.” I set my cup soup on the coffee table and took her hand in mine. “Look at what happened to Cali D. I could have been there and I could have been dead, too. Learn from my mistake, Kelsy. I love Tev to death but he’s unhealthy.”
    Tevin had been my friend and brother for six years. He’d been Cali D’s right-hand man when I met him. Because he had been there to keep my company when Cali D wasn’t, we’d grown extremely close. But the greedy ingrate that Cali D was known to be, had eventually caused him and Tevin to become enemies. Tevin and I had retained our growing friendship, nevertheless.
    One day while he was giving me a lift from college, we’d seen this bodacious beauty on the roadside who’d looked pissed and annoyed that her CLK tire had gone flat. Tevin had pulled over to her aid, and for them, it was love at first sight. They were instantly drawn to each other and became inseparable. Kelsy and I had grown to become best friends and uncleavable, also.
    Kelsy stared at me with wet green eyes, then she swung her arms around me. “I know. I know he’s bad. But I love him too much to give him up. I worry a lot that something might happen, like what happen to Cali D. But I just can’t…I love Tev.”
    “I know you do. Let’s just invoke a divine intervention for him and hope his interruption to Damascus is near,” I soothed, knowing that was next to impossible. Tevin had made it clear a zillion times that he wanted no other life. There are some bad guys that want desperately to be good and some bad guys that are just…bad guys.
    “Will you move in with me when I get the apartment?” Kelsy asked. “Gratis. No rent.”
    I laughed. “I’ll think about it. I’m already disgusted with you and Tev here tongue bathing each other around the clock. Living with it? I’d be repulsed.”
    “Let’s go shopping. I need to lift my spirit.” She wiped the tears from her brilliant green eyes.
    Shopping. Yes, I needed fabrics and a few apparatuses to start working on my profile. “Sure.”
    Rife with shopping bags, we lugged our tired selves back into the apartment. Whisked. I’d forgotten how draining it could be when shopping with Kelsy. “Did you really need to get all those stuff?” “Yes,” she chirped. “ Now I’m happy.”
    Flopping down on the sofa in exhaustion, I jerked when my cell phone went abuzz. The number wasn’t one I recognized.
    “Hello?”
    “I knew I couldn’t trust you to call me,” a deep, melodic voice said on the other end with no preamble whatsoever. I didn’t recognize the voice either.
    “Uh, I’m sorry, who is this?” Please say ‘Natalio, from the club’ .
    “It’s Devon. I met you at the coffee shop yesterday? You told me you’d call, but you didn’t.”
    Hope balloon deflated.
    It was that handsome guy from Starbucks. I’d forgotten all about him. “How did you get my number? I didn’t give it to you.”
    “I gave it to myself,” he replied simply.
    “Huh?”
    “It’s an old trick, Sadie. When I entered my number into your phone, I rang it. So that’s how I got it. I had a feeling you wouldn’t call and I didn’t want to lose contact with you. You have me mesmerized.”
    “Oh,” I said, wondering how I’ve never heard of that trick before. How presumptuous.
    “Sadie,” he said, in all seriousness. “I really like you and I would love to see you again. Is that possible? Please don’t say no.”
    “You tricked me into getting my number. How did you know I wouldn’t swear at you and tell you to take a hike?”
    “Because you are too sweet for that. Your lips are much too beautiful to do abominable things like swearing.”
    “Flattery will get you nowhere, Devon.” This guy had some of the most rinsed-out, clichéd lines. No one ever taught him how to woo a woman?
    He chuckled. “I’m an aging squirrel and you’re a tough nut to crack. Let me try again.” He cleared his throat.