Free Finding Forever by Christina C Jones

it. Stop trying to be funny, Tee.”
    “I’m not trying to be funny. It is funny. What makes you think I would ever accept Avery as a client?”
    “Because you love me?”
    I giggled again as I pulled open another pod, sending peas flying all over the porch. “Sorry doll, love isn’t gonna be enough this time.”
    “What about money? I told him your fee was double what it actually is, and he didn’t blink!”
    Hmm. That was appealing, but still.
    “Nope, not enough money in the world,” I said.
    “Tori!”
    “Des!”
    “Tori, please? Avery needs this.”
    “And I should care because… ”
    “Because you’re a good person, and when you see someone in need, you help them out. And let’s not act like you don’t owe me.”
    I rolled my eyes, knowing Des was about to cash in the ‘bad friend’ credit I had extended her after not telling her about what was going on between Rafael and I. “Owe you for what?” I asked anyway, feigning ignorance.
    “Girl, please. You know why.”
    Digging into the bucket for another pod, I breathed a heavy sigh of my own. “Fine, Des. I’ll meet with him, but that’s all I can guarantee. If he’s rude to me, I’m punching his ass again, and I will not work with him.
    “That’s completely understandable, Tee, but I promise, nothing like that is gonna happen again.”
    “It had better not. And you can tell him I want triple my normal fee, and make sure he knows he’s paying extra.”
    “Not a problem.”
    Hearing movement behind me, I glanced up to see that my stepmother, Lynne, was eyeing me from the door to the porch. “Hey Des, I’ve gotta go. Have Avery send me his availability, and we’ll set the meeting up.
    “I will. Thank you so much Tori. He appreciates it.”
    “I don’t need his appreciation, I need his participation. Make it very clear that if I take him on, he will do anything I ask, or I’m dropping him. I’m only doing this for you, and I don’t want my time wasted..”
    “Well, I appreciate you. Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome, Des.”
    We exchanged goodbyes, and I reached into the bucket beside me for the last few pea pods.
    “So… Who is Avery?” Lynne stepped out onto the porch to peer into the nearly full bowl of peas I’d shelled.
    I shook my head as I dropped the last of the peas in with the rest. “Just a new client— Des’ brother.”
    “Sounds like you were giving her the blues about him.”
    Lynne’s tone was bored, but I knew she was hyper-alert, and analyzing every word out of my mouth. I was 13 when my father married her, three years after my mother’s death. Right on the brink of my teenaged rebellion phase, Lynne had come in my life, with no intentions of allowing a smart-mouthed little girl to run the household. For about two years, I pretended to hate her and six-year old Melanie, her child from her first marriage, but secretly, I’d been relieved. I needed a mom, and the little sister that came along wasn’t too bad either.
    I smiled at her. “Were you eavesdropping, Lynne?”
    “Ain’t no eaves around here, but I may have been doing a little dropping.” She laughed at her own joke, and it was so contagious I couldn’t help but laugh with her.
    “Well, since you heard it anyway, yes, I was giving her a hard time about working with her brother. He wasn’t very nice to me at the wedding.”
    She nodded her head as she picked up the bowl of peas to carry inside. “That the reason you got off the plane looking like somebody stole the last biscuit from you?”
    “Part of it.” I stood to follow her into the house, averting my eyes as she glanced back, but she waited for me to elaborate before she would move out of the door. “That was the same weekend I signed the final paperwork from the … thing with Rafael.”
    Lynne lifted an eyebrow at me as she dropped the bowl into the sink to rinse. “Thing? Call it what it is. It was a divorce. You got a divorce, no shame in that. Not with the way that man was