Chapter 7
I wave Margie into my apartment. “It took you forever!”
She gives me a dead-eyed look. “You had me battle crack-of-dawn, rush-hour train traffic to bring my child here for nefarious purposes. You’re lucky I’m here at all. Is Jack home?”
I shake my head. “He left for the gym twenty minutes ago. We have to hurry. Cashmere ready for showtime?”
Margie holds up her carrier. Cashmere, two years old, small, with gorgeous amber eyes and white fur interrupted by the occasional patch of light gray, peers out at me from within.
She’s an extraordinarily sweet-tempered cat, surprising given that Margie found her with BB pellets lodged in her side courtesy of some evil humans.
But she’s healed, and she’s purring loudly as Margie pulls her from her carrier.
“Let’s do this,” Margie says, tucking her cat under her arm and climbing through The Hole.
When we’re both in, she pulls a toy from her back pocket and sets Cashmere onto Jack’s sofa.
“Make her run back and forth,” I say eagerly. “Really get those kitty juices on that Belgian linen.”
Margie complies, waving the toy back and forth. “I’m a professional actor. On a prime-time show. And right now I’m making my cat rub her ass on my best friend’s neighbor’s sofa.”
“I appreciate you!”
Margie raises an eyebrow.
The cat leaps from the sofa, inspecting different corners of the room before lounging on the living room rug.
Margie picks her up and heads for Jack’s bedroom.
There, Cashmere has a good deal of fun with Jack’s coverlet and pillows.
Margie even pulls back the white comforter so that Cashmere can explore Jack’s sheets.
I laugh at the cat’s antics, running my hand over her head and scratching her belly.
“You said the sister’s cat made him itch? If that boy has an allergy, we’ll know,” Margie says.
“He’s an asshole, but I trust him to know what makes him itch.”
Margie picks up Cashmere, crooning to her and scratching behind her ears before heading to the bathroom. She proceeds to run her cat’s rear over Jack’s toilet seat for good measure.
“You’re a good friend.”
“I know.”
“You think Avery would help us bury a body?”
Margie snorts. “If either one of us killed someone, he’d narc us out so hard.”
“I don’t know. He roughed up that guy who dumped a beer on your head senior year. He’s not all goody-goody.”
“Avery is my bestie, but I’m not blind to who he is,” she says as we climb back into my apartment. “He’s predicable, dependable, and so straitlaced it’s a miracle he can breathe. Like he’s wearing a moral girdle.”
My cell alarm goes off—too late for Margie to leave now. “I can’t risk you running into him. Cashmere needs an alibi. Hang out for a bit? You can help me brainstorm how to save money for my mortgage.” I gesture toward my open laptop, where I’ve outlined my monthly expenditures.
She picks up my computer and lounges on my sofa, gently petting Cashmere as I fix my face for work. “Monthly flowers to Mom are in your ‘can’t cut’ column?”
I tip my chin up a fraction. It’s not a little bit of money, but I’m grateful to Mom.
She sacrificed so much for me when Dad took off.
“She misses me. I think she likes knowing I’m thinking of her.
” Margie sets the laptop down with a shrug, silent judgment in her raised eyebrows.
I return my gaze to my mirror, blending my foundation a little too vigorously.
“Since when do you play violin?” Margie finally drawls, nodding toward the instrument case on my kitchen counter.
I grin into my tabletop makeup mirror. “I don’t. It’s for Jack. I just put on my noise cancellers and run the stick thingy over the strings a bunch while I’m watching Jeopardy! with closed captioning. I found it on a curb.”
“Oh, okay. That’s sane.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a script. “Here. Are you done? We’re running lines as a thank-you to me.”
I help Margie rehearse until Jack returns home. When she’s confident she can leave without running into him, she collects Cashmere and departs, a smirk playing about her lips.
I leave for work just after her. And it isn’t long before I realize that watching Margie rub her cat’s ass on a toilet seat is probably going to end up being the highlight of my day.
Besides the usual work fuckery, my big global campaign conference call runs on past its end time as The Professor proposes ludicrous hypothetical after hypothetical.
“One central coordinator from each region sounds good in theory. However, what would happen should one be, say, hit by a bus? And in a perfect world, your schedule for translation and localization would be feasible. But it hinges on Marci. What if Marci goes on maternity leave?”
“I’m not pregnant.” Marci looks alarmed as she leans toward her camera.
“Not now, but—”
“I’m sorry, Anthony, we’re going to need to wrap—” I say into my headset mic.
“And last, I’m sure you’re aware, Penelope, but the software you propose everyone use across the globe still needs to go through strenuous security vetting.”
I freeze, fumbling with the papers on my desk. “I proposed that software because we’ve already launched pilots with it in every country.”
“Perhaps you should add that to the agenda for next week. I think if we pull at that thread now, the whole sweater might come undone,” Anthony says.
I end the call and close out the online mortgage prequalification calculator on my browser.
I’ve pinpointed the exact raise amount I need, and if I can get even a modest one, I can buy my apartment.
It’ll wipe out most of my savings, which scares the shit out of me, but it’s doable.
With Anthony on this team, that dream is slipping further and further away.
I trudge home, stopping only to buy myself an emotional-support crêpe filled with chocolate and topped with whipped cream.
It’s gone before I reach my front door, and so is the napkin I must’ve dropped en route.
Once I’m inside, I quickly realize just how tricky opening my mailbox one-handed will be.
Looking around for a newspaper or some other makeshift napkin, I finally wipe my messy fingers down Jack’s mailbox, leaving chocolate streaked down the front. I hope he thinks it’s dog poop.
My amused satisfaction is cut short when Jack himself enters a few beats later.
I open my mailbox and act casual, except for a single weird, darting glance we exchange.
I try not to think about his hands on me, try not to wonder if he’s thinking about it, too, and instead chuck my mail into my bag and lock up quickly.
Jack eyes the brown stains on his mailbox before apparently deciding against opening it.
I begin the five-flight climb and hear Jack just behind me. I stop, waving him past. He stops, too, holding onto the banister. He has a strange look on his face, almost guilty—but he would have to have a conscience for that.
“Ladies first.”
“Just don’t stare at my ass.”
I continue the climb, thinking about Jack’s arm wrapped around me, pulling me against him. It was one thing when Pirate Duke put ideas into my head and I thought they were entirely one-sided. Gross and confusing and disconnected from reality, but one-sided. But now, with an almost-kiss…
We reach the landing, and there’s a faint sheen of perspiration on Jack’s face, though I’ve never seen him break a sweat on the stairs before.
Maybe he’s sick? Is it the kitty juices?
He doesn’t appear to be itchy, and he would’ve left for work shortly after me.
I rush to my door and try to ignore the prickle of conscience the thought brings.
“Can I talk to you a sec?” he asks.
I jam my key into the lock. “What?”
“I wanted to say… I misread the situation last night, and I didn’t have a right to put my hands on you without your explicit consent, and…”
I’m having a hard time following the thread of this convo. Is he apologizing to me? And saying things like “no right” and “consent”? No wonder he looks ill. I gape at him.
Jack runs a hand through his hair and then loosens his tie, unbuttoning the top of his blue dress shirt. I’m briefly distracted by the reveal of that patch of skin. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, bewilderment and suspicion at war with each other. I turn to close my door on him, guilt over this morning’s feline antics growing.
He reaches out a hand, stilling the motion. “And?” he says.
“And… What? Thank you?”
“And don’t you have anything to apologize for?”
“No?”
He grits his teeth and spits out, “Yelena?”
What the hell? “My name is Penelope,” I say, slowly. My eyes search his face for signs of real illness.
Jack bends his head, and when he finally speaks, it’s with insultingly exaggerated patience. “I’m talking about the appraiser. Her name is Yelena.”
“Oh. That.” I bite the inside of my cheek.
“Okay, fine. I— I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was there to appraise the place, and…
” Oh, fuck it. This war with him is exhausting.
At least if we can return to a Cold War, I won’t feel so disoriented all the time.
I need to conserve my energy to focus on my project at work.
“And even if she wasn’t there for that, I should’ve minded my business. Happy?”
He rubs at the back of his neck and nods. “I wasn’t blameless in that whole thing, either, I guess,” he mutters. “I just remembered telling her my neighbor was eccentric. She must have thought I was underselling it when you launched yourself through the hole.”
I glare, but there’s no real heat in it, and a smile tugs at his mouth. “Kiss and make up?”
“Ugh. The worst.”
“Hey, you’re the one who tried to move in with me.” At my blank look, he continues, “The hole?”
“Whatever. Speaking of, you’re definitely planning on buying your place?” Please say no. Please say no.
“Yes.”
My shoulders slump. Damn it. “Okay, well then, do you—” I grit my teeth. “Do you want to help me put up a new wall?”
“Nope.”