Lace could see the minute Inez put it all together.
“I get it,” she said excitedly. “Sleight. Of. Hand. That’s awesome. Are there more words like that?”
Vince chuckled. “A lot, I’m sure. But I don’t know any off the top of my head. I’ll do some research and find some others to tell you on Friday.”
“You promise you’ll be here on Friday?” she asked, brightening, but with some hesitation in her voice.
Lace knew what that was like; doubting things, when the world seemed to be against you.
“Yup,” Vince assured her. “Every Friday,andon the Tuesday’s when you get this treatment.”
For the first time today, Inez looked like an excited little girl, instead of a frightened patient.
“You, too, Lace?” Inez inquired. Although Vince had mentioned the change in schedule before, Inez must have missed it in her trepidation over what had been about to happen.
“Not exactly,” Lace informed her. “You won’t see me on Fridays anymore because I have to work, but I’ve switched my infusion days to Tuesdays so I can be with you.”
Inez looked at her as if she’d been speaking…French.
Her brows drew together in puzzlement. “Why?”
That was a no-brainer. “Because everybody deserves a friend when they’re going through something hard,” Lace clarified. “And since I’ve had to have my infusions alone, too, I thought it would be nice if we could keep each other company.”
“Fluffo isn’t with you when you get yours?” Inez asked curiously.
“Vin…Fluffo and I have only known each other for a short time, Inez. So, up untilnow, I’ve been alone.”
“But she won’t be anymore,” Vincent put in, definitively.
Lace sent him a warm look.
“And Inez?” he continued, with a seriousness Lace knew Inez wouldn’t miss.
“Yeah?” She wrinkled her cute, button nose.
Vince reached out a hand and tweaked that appendage; like a true clown, making it squeak.
“Neither will you.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The treatment session for Inez wrapped up just prior to noon, after which Vince and Lace hung out with her until her ride arrived. When the social workerdidfinally show up, a half hour late to retrieve her, the woman seemed cold, harried and overworked.
Vincent commiserated. But when she shut him down as he tried to make conversation—although his questions were completely innocuous—and instead hustled Inez out of there, he wasn’t pleased.
He aired his frustration to Lace.
“I know the agency is understaffed, but that woman didn’t have to be a bitch,” he grumbled as they made their way down the hall a few minutes later.
She laid a hand on his arm. “She wasn’t so much being a bitch, as she was overburdened,” Lace comforted. Then her mouth twisted into a smirk. “Maybe you’re just butt-hurt because she didn’t fall for your Sothard charm.”
Vincent’s mood automatically improved.
Lace thought he had charm.
He grinned and led her out through the hospital’s revolving doors. “The only woman I want to charm, is you, Lace.”
She didn’t hesitate.