Auf'd (The Belinda & Bennett Mysteries, Book Two)

Chapter 20

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Belinda had stopped buying shoes. Well, not entirely, but let's say, she stopped buying shoes as a hobby. After Mark Nichols, her old love interest, passed away, she unintentionally used shoe shopping as therapy and wound up with more shoes than closet space. Her mother finally intervened, and after examining her shoe collection, Belinda realized she hardly wore any of them anyway. So after a massive clean out, she vowed not to use shoes to make her feel better ever again.

But Belinda had other reasons to give it up, and she listed these as she gripped the steering wheel of her Mini in the driveway once she had time to digest what she'd just done. And all of the horrible consequences if anyone ever found out.

ONE: Shoes-even cheap shoes-get expensive when you buy multiple pairs. At this time in her life, she was hardly in a position to spend like money came from hacking up bushes in the front yard. (Though some video games would lead you to believe otherwise.) She'd never had to ask her parents to bail her out (unlike some of her former classmates), and she wasn't starting now.

TWO: Shoes require storage space, as previously mentioned. And while space wasn't a major issue at that moment (discounting the living-in-the-carriage-house situation), Belinda knew she would not always live in her family's home. (But that was a problem for another time.)

THREE: Shoes require wearing or there's no point in buying them. Again, as stated, she gravitated toward a handful of pairs. She didn't picture that changing.

FOUR: Belinda had avoided shoe-buying therapy for years and she didn't want to backslide now!

FIVE: (She couldn't think of a five.)

SIX: (Well, if she had no five, then she had no six.)

This crisis did not justify slipping back into old, unhealthy patterns. Buying a new pair of shoes for the summer, however strappy and cute, would not solve the problem. Making things right would. But she had no idea how to make this right. Belinda sighed and leaned back in the seat.

She did, however, know how to make things right with Bennett. Well, sort of.

Put it this way: Belinda was more determined than ever to make things right with Bennett. No two-timing personal assistant was stealing her man. And no manwhore designer was ruining Belinda's chances with the finest piece of man meat she'd ever dated. Bennett was hers. Hers. And that was all there was to it. He could say what he wanted, and make Grumpy Cat faces at her for eternity. But he wasn't getting away. Not now. Not ever.

Okay, that sounded a bit stalkerish. But it's how she felt at that moment resisting the urge to go buy a pair of sandals. She'd overcome other obstacles. Belinda could overcome the obstacles separating her from Bennett. And buying shoes would not get her what she really wanted.

Her phone blipped and she checked it, expecting a text from Victoria, but it was Finnegan.

Finnegan!

She'd completely forgotten to call him back...again. After promising she would.

He'd texted, saying he had something important to tell her and would she please call...if she had time. Belinda responded immediately. Maybe he had something that would bash through the dead end and help her avoid a complete catastrophe.

"I'm a horrible, horrible person," she said as soon as Finnegan picked up. "I'm soooo sorry! I'm not usually this scatterbrained, I swear. I should have called you back. I'm so sorry!"

"I believe you," Finnegan said, then laughed. "Sort of. But let me just tell you this before something more interesting comes along and you hang up on me again."