Page 63 of Just One Fake Date

“You mean stealing garbage.”

“I meanupcycling.”

Ty couldn’t imagine taking home a piece of furniture he found abandoned at the curb, but clearly Shannyn could. She was even excited about it. She ran to the house. Ty watched her go, knowing that if this guy was selling anything, Shannyn would buy.

He really had to teach her something about negotiation.

At least about having a poker face.

He looked down at the chair, then at the roof of the car. She really wanted it. It wasn’t that dirty or that big. He lifted it and realized it wasn’t that heavy, either. He had a blanket in the trunk and a length of rope. The cushions could go in the trunk. He checked his watch, decided time was of the essence, and chose to solve it.

Ty put Shannyn’s bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat. He shed his suit jacket and put it on the back seat then rolled up his sleeves. He opened the trunk, cast the blanket over the roof, and glared at a guy walking a dog who stopped to check out the chair. He’d rolled down the windows and started to tie the chair in place when Shannyn came out of the house, her face alight.

She laughed when she saw what he was doing, but didn’t comment. That was good, because he was thinking about the chances of the rope chafing the upholstery and reconsidering the wisdom of his decision.

Marcus would be able to fix it.

“Another chair?” he asked, assuming the worst from her expression. He wondered how many trips he was doomed to make to Brooklyn this day.

“Better!” she said with excitement. “The entire living room suite. There’s a couch, and a coffee table, and”—she was literally bouncing—“the kitchen table, chairs and hutch, too. I can’t believe it. It’s in perfect condition and he just wants it to go away.”

“And you want to help with that.”

“Don’t sound so grim. This is an epic score, my best score of all time, and I have the recessive thrifting gene.”

“What?”

“It’s my superpower. This is big, even for me.” She leaned closer, her eyes shining with such pleasure that Ty couldn’t look away. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Even better, it’s the solution.”

“To what?”

“Thiswill top up the fund for my roof.”

Ty looked at the chair, which he saw as junk, then back at Shannyn. “It can’t be worth that much.”

She nodded with confidence. “Cleaned up, re-upholstered, you bet.”

“Then why would he throw it away?”

She shrugged, even as she tapped busily at her phone. “Look at that house. He’s probably going to spend several hundred thousand renovating that place. Maybe half a million. A couple of thousand dollars is neither here nor there to that guy. To me, it’s the rest of my roof. It’s salvation.”

“I thought I was providing that.”

“Oh well.” She glanced up at him, her smile filled with mischief.

And Ty realized that Shannyn’s find meant that she didn’t need him to solve the issue of her roof anymore, which meant their second deal might not come to closure. He had that feeling of things unraveling fast, a sense of powerlessness that he was starting to associate with Shannyn.

He needed to be part of the solution to stay in the loop.

He looked at the chair on the roof of his car and focused on practicalities. “I can’t take a couch.”

“I know.” She shook her head sadly. “Pretty but silly car.”

Ty felt protective of his car and its dignity. “Well, I wasn’t planning to pick up trash.”

“I know. I’m not calling it a lack of foresight. Just a disparity in priorities.” She was scrolling through her list of contacts on her phone. “Not enough time to get a rental. I could call Phil, I guess.”

“Phil?”

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