Page 17 of Plum

“We meet there. And you stop spying on me.”

“Done.”

“How’d you find out that shit, anyway?”

“My company pays for a background check service. It’s all public record.”

“Public records told you I don’t have an old man?”

He shakes his head. “That was a guess. You’re with Steel Bones. If you had an old man, you wouldn’t be in this room with me now.”

“You think you know it all, don’t you?”

He shrugs.

“I don’t like spicy food. You know that?”

His smile flashes blinding bright again. “So an expensive restaurant with bland food. Any other requirements, Plum Pudding?”

“You know that Plum Pudding is a Strawberry Shortcake doll, right?”

He gives me a blank look.

“Little doll with a big head? Beady eyes and freckles? From the 80s?”

“You know you look like a Strawberry Shortcake doll, right?” He chuckles and sets me on my feet away from him before I can slap him upside the head.

Okay. It was a decent burn. For a weird, rich stalker.

“I’m gonna meet you at this restaurant and never be heard from again, ain’t I?” I mutter as I walk him out of the room. I feel less off-kilter when we aren’t alone anymore.

“It’s only dinner.” He rests his hand on the small of my back to guide me up the hall.

“Cash up front.”

“Okay,” he says, and stops in the middle of the door to the main floor, and drops a kiss on the top of my head.

He’s insane.

“Twelve hundred eighty-four dollars?”

“Twelve hundred eighty-four dollars.”

I should have asked for fifteen hundred.

???

That “several thousand” I owe on my Visa is now “several thousand and forty-eight dollars plus shipping.”

And I don’t feel bad about it.

Much.

I break down the box, and then I unroll my new doormat, sitting on it cross-legged to help it lay flat. It’s adorable. Beige straw with bright red strawberries. It’s going in front of the back door so no one fucks it up.

It’s Monday, my day off. It’s sunny outside, and I have a whole, glorious day in front of me to putter around the house. I told Fay-Lee I’d come by the clubhouse tonight, but until then, it’s me and the birds, the vacuum, and the furniture polish. Heaven.

I exhale, and I lower myself flat on the floor. I’m at a slight incline ‘cause of the sagging floorboards. I need to ask one of the brothers to take a look at it. It might be an easy fix. Yeah, right. I sigh and push the idea from my head. It’s my day off. No worries allowed.

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