She had that right.

“You’ll find um… hot and nice,” I encouraged, though I wasn’t certain I should. It was my experience that those two didn’t go very well together. Niles was nothing to sneeze at. In fact, he was quite good-looking if not powerfully built and amazingly attractive. He was also nice. He was just…

Clueless.

“Easy for you to say again,” Mindy said to me. “You’ve got Max, he’s hot and nice.”

I suspected she had that right too, though the jury was still out on that one.

“Mindy –” I started and she cut me off but before she did I noticed her color had gone high, the light had gone out of her eyes and her shoulders had slumped.

I guessed this was all indicative of a “bad moment” coming on.

“Can we not talk about this?” Mindy asked and I knew from the dead tone of her voice that I was right.

“Girl –” Becca began but Mindy cut her off too.

“I asked, can we not talk about this?”

I looked at Becca who was looking at me. I tipped my head at Mindy and Becca shrugged.

“All right, darling, we’ll not talk about this,” I said to Mindy.

“I need a drink,” Mindy said back. “Let’s go to The Dog.”

“We’re drinking here,” I reminded her.

“The Dog’s more fun,” Mindy told me.

I was supposed to be back at the Mindy-less A-Frame after dinner to meet Max. Max and his hands and his mouth and his tongue and his muscled back and amazing chest and queen-sized bed.

“I could go to The Dog,” I decided.

“Brill!” Becca exclaimed. “My shift starts in half an hour, we’ll get you at one of my tables, we’ll carry on girlie time even when I’m workin’.”

“I need to call Max,” I told them, digging in my bag, looking for my phone. “Do either of you have his number?”

“Sure,” Mindy said but I was still digging.

Then I realized I’d left my phone on Max’s nightstand. And Niles might have called while Max was at home.

Drat!

I dropped my purse to hang on the chair and turned to the table. “Actually, I forgot my phone.”

Mindy’s thumb was moving on her phone, she beeped it and handed it to me. “Use mine, should be ringing.”

I took it, glanced at them both and muttered, “Excuse me,” before I got up and walked from the table the short distance to the lobby.

“Yeah?” Max answered.

“Max?”

“Duchess?”

“Yes.”

“Everything okay?”

“Um… we’re going to The Dog.”

There was a moment of silence, loaded silence.

Then, “What?”

“We had a somewhat… difficult conversation at dinner. Mindy needs a drink.”

“Mindy’s drivin’ and she’s supposed to be drivin’ you up here, she doesn’t need a drink.”

“Trust me, Max, I think she needs a drink.”

He was quiet a second then his voice was soft when he asked, “That bad?”

“Not really,” I answered honestly, “just that, if we don’t do evasive maneuvering, it might get there.”

“I need to come down?”

All right, maybe he was nice.

“I’ll call you if I think you should.”

“All right, Duchess,” he replied, “and speakin’ of callin’. Your phone’s here.” I held my breath and he went on. “You got a coupla calls. The display says they’re from your Mom.”

“Oh.”

Mom. She knew I was here. I was supposed to call her and talk through the Niles situation. With all that went on, I forgot.

“You want me to answer, she calls again, give her Mindy’s number?” Max offered.

“No, that’s okay, I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Whatever you want, honey.”

Yes, evidence was clearly suggesting Max was nice.

“I better go.”

“Yeah, you go, the new plan is you have fun, Mindy has fun, I’ll come down to pick you both up ‘round eleven. That enough time for evasive maneuvering?”

The evidence was becoming overwhelming.

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll stay sober and drive Mindy home.”

“How’ll you get here?”

“Well, I could stay with Mindy and Becca and maybe one of them will bring me back tomorrow morning.”

His voice was different, firm to the point of being solid when he stated, “Babe, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Max –”

“See you at eleven.”

“Max –”

“Be good.”

“Max!”

Wasted effort to say his name, he hung up.

I slid Mindy’s phone closed and walked back to the table.

“Max has a new plan,” I announced when they both looked at me, I sat down and I looked at Mindy. “He wants us to have fun. He’s designated driver, picking us up at eleven.”

“Killer!” Becca cried.

“Cool!” Mindy cried at the same time.

I smiled at them genuinely this time because really, if I got down to it, spending time with them, shopping at great shops, eating delicious buffalo burgers, snowmobiling, gazing at beautiful vistas, meeting Cotton and having him take my photo with Max, getting my head sorted about Niles which was a relief even if it was a sad one, my Colorado adventure might have started out terrible and was trundling along the road of deeply confusing but still, it wasn’t turning out half bad.

* * * * *

“Rat-arsed!” Arlene yelled through a guffaw. “That’s just screwy.”

“Well then, what does shitfaced really mean?” I returned.

She considered this, head tipped to the side then grinned somewhat crookedly and proclaimed, “You got me there.”

“Ha!” I cried and she and I both laughed.

I was right when we left the pizza place. My Colorado adventure wasn’t turning out half bad and it was getting better.

The Dog was fun. It was well off the main drag out in the middle of nowhere. You had to know it was there to find it which meant it was almost entirely populated by locals.

And it was populated. Even for a Thursday it was busy, nearly jam-packed. The music was loud and the beer was cold. It was great.

Arlene, my taxi nemesis, had hit Mindy and my table around forty-five minutes after we arrived. She introduced herself and without invitation sat herself down at a stool at our small, high, round table. She was older than me I guessed by about fifteen years or so. She was short, very round but had the daintiest feet and hands I’d ever seen. She had close cropped hair that looked permed and it was colored a peculiar shade of peach that I thought was supposed to be strawberry blonde but missed the mark by quite a bit.