I turned to look at the girls, “So how will I get my car back?”

“You’re coming tomorrow, right? To the thing I’m doing with my new band?” Alice asked

I looked at Harley. I saw in her eyes that she wanted me to, so I nodded my head at Alice.

“Well you can get it then!” Helena exclaimed. “Problem solved. Only means you’ll need Aerin to drive you around tomorrow, too. Which should be easy enough since you’ll be spending the evening together, most likely right?” She winked slowly at Aerin.

Ten minutes later, we were making our way slowly down Melrose. As she’d done last night while I’d driven, I reached out now and took her hand between two of mine.

“I like them,” I said, as I kissed her hand.

“They love you,” she answered. She pursed her lips as she followed the car ahead of her ease into a stop when the light turned red.

“Take it easy, honey,” I said soothingly as she frowned a little, looking anxiously at the light. “I don’t mind sitting in traffic here with you.”

“Won’t you be late?” she asked, turning to me anxiously.

I shook my head, feeling surprisingly relaxed. “Even in the off-chance that I am,” I added, “He knows to expect it, given where I’m coming from.”

“But isn’t he a big client?” she asked again, looking unconvinced.

“I have worked so many hours on his account, not all of it billed, as he knows well. And this is an unscheduled meeting that he probably just wants to use to chat with me about where we are with the documentation we’re gathering for this case of his. Not a strategy meeting or anything like that, and he said so. Plus he already said he’d understand if I ran late, given the traffic from where we were. Won’t be an issue, honey,” I answered.

After I rubbed her forearm for emphasis, she relaxed slightly.

The light turned green so we rolled forward and fell silent. I let her hand go as I could see that she wanted to maneuver through the traffic, still a little anxious, despite my assurances. She managed to get us into a faster moving lane that flowed through a few lights, but then we slowed to a crawl again as we joined the lanes that led to the freeway.