Uh-oh.

I moved in, making sure the door swung closed, hoping that would drown out the noise.

“Ladies—” I began.

Daisy looked at me. “Just so you know, sugar, I got an appointment for fills, I do it on my lunch hour.”

“Suck up,” Shirleen snapped.

“I’m not suckin’ up!” Daisy snapped back.

Shirleen leaned back. “At least Shirleen don’t suck up.”

Daisy slammed a hand on the desk, her long nails (white with green glitter tips) clicking, and she screamed, “I’m not suckin’ up!”

Hmm.

That would filter into the hall.

Definitely.

Time to end this.

“Yo!” I shouted, and they both swung their eyes to me.

Okay. So. I didn’t get scared.

Shirleen and Daisy pissed with their eyes to me?

I had to admit. I felt it.

“Daisy isn’t a suck up. She doesn’t have to suck up. We’re a team,” I told Shirleen.

“See,” Daisy said snottily.

“Just like,” I put in quickly when Shirleen opened her mouth, “you’re a member of Lee’s team. You have your way of doing things over there.” I threw out an arm. “We have our way of doing things here.” I pointed to the floor.

“You’re workin’ with the boys,” Shirleen said to me. “They’ll see Daisy in action and get ideas.”

Was she high?

I wasn’t certain that Lee’s boys even knew Daisy worked for me. And if they did, it was in passing and they didn’t give a shit.

“Does Lee care if you file?” I asked.

“The word ‘file’ isn’t even in Lee’s vocabulary,” Shirleen answered.

This, I figured, was true.

“Do the boys pay any attention to administration at all over at Lee’s?” I kept at it.

“Hell no,” Shirleen replied.

I swung an arm out again. “Then why would they here?”

Her head cocked to the side.

“I see your point,” she muttered.

Jeez.

“Okay. So are we done with this ridiculous fight?” I asked.

“I am,” Daisy declared, sitting her ass, encased in a skintight green skirt, down in her office chair. This afforded us a view only of a white blouse that was unbuttoned way beyond professional levels that had the added attraction of being nearly see-through, so we saw the miles of lace that was her bra. Not to mention a head of hair that needed its own area code.

Shirleen narrowed her eyes on Daisy, and I cautiously got closer to the desk.

“What’s really on your mind?” I asked Shirleen and she looked at me.

“Shit’s boring,” she decreed.

Oh man.

Tex in black woman form.

I didn’t know which was worse, but at that moment, with Shirleen close and in a pissy mood, she was.

“Everyone’s hooked up, you were the last, and you were boring,” she complained. “Sure, you stripped. And it was hot. La-di-da. But now, no more apartments exploding. No one’s left to get kidnapped. Nothin’. The boys, they take care of business. I answer the phone. I send invoices. I run payroll. Then I go home and watch TV. I didn’t sign up for that shit.”

“So you came over and picked a fight with Daisy?” I asked.

“What the hell else am I gonna do?” Shirleen asked back then leaned in. “File?”

My answer to that would be yes.

If I was insane enough to verbalize it.

I wasn’t, so instead I studied her and got closer.

My voice also dipped lower when I pressed, “Okay, Shirleen, now tell us what’s really on your mind.”

She pulled in a breath, looked at Daisy, looked at me then declared, “Sniff’s got a girlfriend.”

Oh shit.

“They’re tight. He’s never home,” she went on.

Crap.

“I never see him,” she kept going. “And when he’s home, he’s on the phone…” she paused, “with her.”

Hmm.

Momma wasn’t liking her cubs shifting away from the den.

Shirleen wasn’t done, and she saved the scariest for last.

“And we gotta have the talk, and not only do I not wanna have the talk, I don’t know how to have the talk.”

I was thinking, with Roam and Sniff (mostly Roam, but it also could be with Sniff) it was a little late for the talk as in, the sex talk. Both had been serial daters for a while, with Roam going for the world record.

I didn’t share that either.

But Daisy (as always) was in the mood to share.

She flicked a wrist and advised, “Just buy him a pack of condoms and put it on his pillow.”

“Say what?” Shirleen asked, eyes huge.

“That says it all,” Daisy answered.

“What it says is I’m down with him havin’ sex, which I am not,” Shirleen fired back.

“He’s a boy. He’s seventeen. It’s gonna happen, if it already hasn’t, sugar,” Daisy pointed out.

“He’s my boy and it’s not gonna happen until he gets what it means,” Shirleen retorted and finished, “And it has not already happened.”

Hmm.

Maternal denial.

I moved to switch subjects by asking, “What does it mean?”

She swung her gaze to me, and I successfully stopped myself from taking a step back.

“You don’t know?”

“I know what it means to me. I just don’t know what you want Sniff to know what it means,” I replied.

“You do the business with Zano. What’s that mean?” she returned.

“I said I knew what it meant to me,” I repeated, trying for patience. “I want to know what you want to share with Sniff.”

“That he should find a girl that means something to him so it will mean what it means when you do the deed with Zano. Or Indy with Lee. Mace with Stella—”

Daisy interrupted Shirleen with, “We get it.”

Shirleen looked at her. “You with Marcus.”

“Oh darlin’,” Daisy waved a hand, palm out, “to get to a Marcus, he’s gotta get in the saddle before he finds The One. And do it a lot. Comprende?”

“And maybe along the way get some silly white girl knocked up?” Shirleen shook her head. “No f**kin’ way.”

Daisy leaned toward Shirleen and put her hand to the desk, reiterating with strained patience, “That’s why you buy him a pack of condoms and put them on his goddamned pillow.”