Exercising...at home.

Dammit. I had no reason at all to be at her house. I flicked ahead, house-church-reading club-fundraisers/parties-visit family-date night-shopping-salon, but my obvious in was a gym and she had a very nice home gym and pool, which her husband had obviously bought to avoid exactly that point of access.

Or maybe not, I didn’t know anything about him, yet. I considered my points of intrusion...Kianna had included the salon Alina went to every week...Asa’s involvement would cause problems, but Kianna...if her car broke down, I might give her a lift and she was going to the salon because Asa was pushing it and paying for it with all her new success. But that wasn’t until this afternoon.

I checked if Kianna was free, and added it to my schedule. My lazy weekend had somehow turned...not so lazy and it was only going to get worse. My phone rang as Rapetoy called.

“What?”

“We have a problem.”

“If this is about Kat, then—”

“No, I’ll do as I’m told there.”

I rolled my eyes, she’d do what she was told everywhere. “Then what?”

“I was working this morning and Harley indicated she wanted to talk to me due to my...connection. She wants me to pass a message along inviting ‘Mr. J,’ to a date night the next time she has movie night.”

Fuck.

I blinked.

Fuck.

Okay...okay...”That’s not set yet. I’ll do the next drawing when the current round is done. Tell her that the date isn’t set. Once it is, we’ll figure out the path forward.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, automatically.

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Fine,” I hung up and put my head in my hands.

“FUCK!” I let it out, even if I made sure it was quiet enough not to annoy the neighbors. I texted Diamond and Asa, letting them know we did actually need to talk. After I’d dealt with Chloe, we could actually talk.

Should I bring Andre?

Maybe for the start, but the rest of this conversation shouldn’t involve him, unless that’s changed?

Not yet.

What is going on? Asa asked.

I’ll tell you when you’re here. Not imminent.

That got two thumbs up, but I saw the dots repeatedly as they started to type other things, before deciding not to. The only real question was whether Chloe would show up before, during, or after lunch, though I supposed she could just not show up.

I checked the app, pulling up her profile. We were still hours out from our lunch of course, but I wasn’t entirely shocked to find...

Chloe is trying on various outfits and realizing how many of even her very sexualized/seductive outfits are intended to accentuate her youth, which is the exact opposite of what she wants and the remainder of her outfits are from her father, which isn't what she wants either.

Well, that was nice, but didn’t answer the fucking question…