Chapter 25
Another month slips by, and we’ve just enjoyed the most glorious string of hot September weather.
I live my life in a bikini, denim shorts, and crochet tops.
I walk dogs, pitch in on the occasional busy night at Superhero Escapes, and read.
A lot. Mostly cozies. Some Starship Cruiser novels.
Lots of sonnets. Yeah, I know Mike has been looking for those, but he’s never getting them back.
He’s been busy with school, rehearsals for a new show, and the renovation. We don’t see each other, and that’s okay. I think. I’m not sure what to make of the cookie-baking day. It felt like the rules changed…but I don’t know what they changed to.
My once-a-month legal briefing with Mom is today.
I read the articles she sent, but just barely. I care less about law by the day.
“You could take this just a little more seriously,” Mom says over lunch at Sugar and Scribe. “Medical malpractice is a huge market, and you’d be helping people.”
I slice into my chilaquiles. They looked so good when Mike ordered them, but I’m missing my glittery blackberry pancakes. “Sure.”
“What did you think about your father’s latest?”
“Routine this. Thoroughly researched that. Same old, same old.”
“But wasn’t it fascinating when…”
And I know I should pay attention to what my mom is saying, but I honestly am too busy keeping up with my FroggoDoggo app today.
“Something wrong?” she asks.
“Everyone is canceling because of the heat and UV index.”
“We’re supposed to hit a record high.”
“Good day for the beach.”
“Maybe if the surf was up,” Mom says.
I put my phone down with a huff. “Wouldn’t you want to pay someone else to walk your dog in the heat of the day?”
“And have to smell sweaty dog for who knows how long as we’re couped up inside with the AC blasting?”
“Fair point.”
“So what are you going to do with your unexpected day off?”
“Take you out for ice cream.”
“At your cottage? I’d love to.”
“Nice try. I was thinking of the ice cream parlor down the street.”
“Pass. But tell me what it’s called. I’ll take Juliet.”
No one loves ice cream as much as my sister, except maybe her son. The Instagram stories I’ve seen are priceless.
Mom lifts up the side of her French toast and frowns. “But maybe not for another few weeks. Poor dear is miserably sick this go-around.”
“Must be a girl.”
Mom smiles. “We can only hope. Your father sends his love. It would be nice if you responded to his texts. Please tell me he isn’t still blocked.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You get it from him, you know. That stubborn streak.”
“And what do I get from you?”
“Dazzling good intellect and keen beauty, among many other virtues.” Mom squints at her plate. “Is there glitter on my French toast?”
“Fun, right?”
“How did you find this place?”
“Mike brought me.”
“Did he, now? How is he?”
“Busy. I rarely see him now that the semester has gotten under way.”
“SDSU has a fabulous library—wonderful law section. Maybe you should do some research on campus. Meet Mike for coffee.”
“Are you attempting to find me a boyfriend or get me back together with law? Because neither plan is going to work.”
Mom pulls out her tarot cards.
I moan.
“What? You have something better to do?”
“I was going to go home and hunker down in the AC like everyone else.”
“Stay. We are doing a reading.”
I sit there for twenty minutes while my mother tells me that every card in my cross and Six of Cups says I’m going to return to law and find a Knight of Wands and settle down, and if he wants to wait to have kids, it isn’t up to him, it’s up to Jupiter and our star charts.
“We done?”
Mom returns her tarot cards to her purse. “You could come with me. I’m getting my palm read and a manicure.”
“I just remembered I have to spritz my cacti.”
I head home and gasp as I pull into the garage.
It feels hotter than a new oven. My shorts are sticking to me, and my linen top is anything but breathable.
I’d jump into the ocean, but I think I’d burn myself on the sand coming out.
A cold ginger ale and an afternoon of reading are what I’m looking forward to.
I frown when I see all the windows of Mike’s beach house open. I startle when I hear the string of obscenities coming from inside.
“Mike?” I call, leaning in past the Dutch door.
More cursing.
I let myself in and head straight for the kitchen. “Mike!” I open the fridge and fan myself with the door.
“What?” he calls from above, in the attic crawl space.
I grab ice cubes from the dispenser drawer in the freezer and roll them over my neck. “I’m not having this conversation with you through walls. Come down. Talk to me!”
I nearly gasp when a sweaty, shirtless Mike appears in the kitchen. “What happened to your hair?”
He’s cut it. All of the bleached blond is gone. But it’s been growing out for so long that instead of looking like a shorn sheep, he looks… His hair looks…amazing.
“It’s an Elizabethan-staged production. Bleached blond wasn’t exactly a style back then.” He goes to run water at his sink, but it sputters. Nothing comes out.
“Come on!” he growls, throwing his shirt into the sink and hitting the faucet, which sputters back to working order.
“Bad day?”
“I was trying to hook up the washer and dryer, but I screwed it up, along with the HVAC system, and now for reasons that I can only presume have to do with the universe hating me, my buddy can’t come out until tomorrow to look at it.”
I grab more ice from the freezer and hold it to Mike’s neck. He hisses but doesn’t swat my hand away.
“You look overheated. How long were you in that attic?”
“I don’t know. Forty-five minutes. An hour.”
In this heat? “That was stupid.”
“Not having working air conditioning despite paying eighteen thousand dollars for a new unit is stupid.”
“So take a cold shower and leave it until tomorrow.”
“I can’t.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“My showerhead broke. The new one is on back order. It’s supposed to be here any day now.”
I’m watching the ice melt on his skin.
“And before you tell me to go cool off in the ocean, I burn, really easily, and in a matter of days, I’m going to be onstage in the biggest role of my life.”
“So crash at my place. Shower and watch Starship Cruiser with me.” I blush. “I mean, shower independently and then join me for some wholesome entertainment.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I’d owe you a favor—”
“That’s how favors generally work. Turnabout is fair play.”
“Not with you. I know how your devious, legal mind works. You turned showing up with tacos into your brother becoming your realtor.”
“You can make me cookies.” I flash back to his lips on my finger…
“Nothing doing. It’s too hot to even turn on an oven.”
“At a time and place of our mutual understanding.” I roll my eyes. “Do you want me to write a contract?”
“Yes, but after I shower. I’m so unbearably hot.”
“You know where to find me.”
As soon as Mike disappears down the hall, I book it over to my cottage.
Not to clean. I keep the place extremely tidy.
I think it’s my way of coping with all the lack of control that preceded my move to La Jolla.
No, I have to hide Mike’s volume of sonnets and the copy of Richard III I nicked the last time I was at his place.
I manage to slide them into the back of my nightstand and fluff the pillows before the knock on my French doors.
“Hi,” I say, pulling Mike inside.
He’s wearing nothing but shorts and carrying a towel and a folded pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt.
“It’s an igloo in here.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“How do your cactuses survive?” He adjusts a Christmas cactus that is blooming inexplicably out of season.
“They’ve acclimated.”
As much as I want to ogle Mike’s bare skin, it’s hardly fair. “Soap, shampoo, conditioner are all in there. Take as long as you need.”
When I hear the shower turn on and the shower curtain slide closed, all the air conditioning in the world won’t cool the heat that flushes my body.