19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Beth

T he sudden cool feeling on my thigh makes me stop walking. It takes about two seconds to realize it's because I have a hole in my pocket! Gasping, I stuff my hand in there. My fingers close around the coins inside, capturing them before one slips all the way through the hole.

I yank them out, tugging the pocket inside-out at the same time.

Oh, yeah. That is one huge hole.

I bet that's how I lost a quarter earlier.

Looking at it now, I'm surprised I didn't lose more of them.

"I can fix that," Catherine tells me as I open the front zip on my purse.

"You can?" I ask, dropping the coins in beside my key to the apartment.

"I have a sewing machine. I haven't used it in a while, but I can dust if off tomorrow at some point. I know how much you love your jeans."

I smile. "Thanks. That would be great."

I push the pocket back in. I wouldn't call these my favorite pair, but she's not wrong. I pretty much live in jeans. They're comfy and they can also be sexy. It's a winning combination.

We walk the rest of the way home without further incident, and I dig the flyer for the pizza place out of my back pocket when we get closer to the apartment.

"You're thinking about dinner already?" Catherine asks, sounding amused.

"Well, I wouldn't say I'm hungry yet, but I just wanted to check where this place was on the way back," I tell her, looking at the address and frowning. "I didn't think there was much down this way?"

"Oh, there's not," she tells me. "It actually looks kind of like an office block or something. The signage is kind of subtle. I'll show you when we get close. I thought Jenny was kidding me when she told me about this place, but it's definitely a restaurant once you get inside."

"Sounds kind of weird," I admit.

"Well, you don't need to go out. They have a phone number on there. They can deliver."

It does say that they do deliveries in our area, but I'm too curious about this restaurant that looks like an office building now to pass up the chance to check it out properly.

Yeah, okay then. Your curiosity has nothing to do with the cute guy you met earlier.

Maybe it has a little to do with the cute guy.

I'm a hot-blooded woman. I'm not going to apologize for finding someone attractive.

It's not like I'm going to do anything crazy, like accept a study date to his parent's house out of the city.

That's the kind of mistake a girl only ever makes once. I'm just lucky it wasn't a fatal one.

"This is it," Catherine tells me, motioning to the empty looking building we're walking past.

"Um, what?" I ask, looking for windows that show a dining room.

All I see are dark looking panes of glass in a red-bricked building.

My sister was right. It looks like an office block, shut down for the weekend.

There's nothing about it that marks out what it is.

And it definitely looks like there are no lights on, but I'm guessing that's only because the glass in the panes is so dark on the windows. That's not what I'd call a usual choice for a restaurant. There's also no signage on the walls or over the door, or anywhere that I can see.

I look at Catherine. "How did you even figure out this was the place?"

"Well, Jenny told me where it was. She noticed the hologram thing on the door."

She points at the dark glass fronted door. I squint at it as I take a step closer.

There's some kind of holographic foil image imprinted onto the dark surface of the door.

It's really hard to see, but now that I've noticed it, I can tell it's the image from the pizza box.

"Wow," I murmur. "They must really want this place to be the city's best kept secret."

"Kind of seems like it, doesn't it?" Catherine asks.

It's disappointing. There's no way this place is going to last when it's practically hidden in plain sight. I really hate it when the places with great food shut down.

"Well, at least now I know where it is," I tell her, turning away.

It's not far from the apartment, and it's on a main street.

It'll take me less than five minutes to walk out here.

I'm definitely coming for dinner.

I might as well enjoy the food while this hidden restaurant lasts.