Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
CHARLIE
“Explain it again,” Tyler says. “Why are we doing this?”
I’m surprised he’s here. That man is a workaholic, and he already helped me run the face-painting booth at today’s after-school carnival. Now he’s at my dining table helping me again.
Blank slips of paper surround us, and I explain the Fishbowl of Destiny one more time, the surprise I want us to make as a farewell gift for Alice. Lydia doesn’t need another explanation, though. She’s hard at work across the table writing down whatever tropes and plot devices she can, anything that might help Carrots if she gets stuck again once she goes back to Texas.
In the background, I can hear her upstairs, the steady clack of Alice’s new typewriter as she works on her book. She’s been up there since dinner, and I glance at Lydia, barely able to hide my smile. “She’s using the typewriter tonight?”
Lydia scribbles only one carriage on a slip of paper before glancing up. “She was having trouble concentrating. She thought it might help.”
Trouble concentrating? I don’t know why that sounds so promising. Probably because of all the flirting we’ve done since breakfast, the fact that I’ve had a hard time concentrating today too.
Then an image pops into my head, the memory of a certain historic outfit, and I forget all about typewriters. And flirting.
I quirk my eyebrow at Lydia. “Is she…wearing anything special?”
Tyler drops his pen, and Lydia stifles a laugh. That sounded way more inappropriate out loud. Her brother lets me off the hook almost immediately, distracted by something on his phone, but Lydia’s a different story. She’s been onto me since Alice showed up.
Pretending to ignore my question, Lydia finishes writing trapped in a wine cellar for our Ziplock bag of fishbowl prompts. Then she makes a big production out of grabbing a few more blank slips of paper. Giving me a mischievous grin, she jots down two wicked little words: maid costume. Torturing me like the matchmaking monster she is.
Lydia adds that paper to our bag of prompts before I can stop her, mixing it in, and it’s going to take me forever to dig it out later, to find and destroy that very unhelpful prompt. But it’ll be worth it. There’s no way I’m sending Alice back to Texas with a smoking gun like that.
Lydia isn’t done. Masking another devious smile, she adds a few more prompts to our collection. She writes down roommate first, then stranded in a small town, but she saves the best for last . The dreaded he falls first. She adds it to the bag with a flourish before finally answering my question.
“I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a very adorable maid costume. All I can say is…she looks amazing and you’re missing it.”
My interest is officially piqued. Scrubbing my hand through my hair, I glance at the stairs. “Does she need anything—should I check on her? Being a good host is very important to me.”
Lydia laughs. “Leave that girl alone. She’s trying to work.”
Fine. Glancing down at my own blank slips of paper, I try to focus, but my mind refuses to cooperate. My mind is unsafe . After I check to make sure Lydia isn’t watching, I scribble good girl and reformed bad boy on separate slips of paper. But I’ll probably have to fish those out of our bag later too.
My phone rings before I can write hot out-of-towner , saving me from myself. Except it’s an actual phone call. From my sister. And who’s going to save me from that?
“Who’s the girl, why is she living at your house, and what on earth is ‘sexy picnicking? Because Carl won’t stop whining about it.”
Busted.
“It’s not like that,” I stammer. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
Tyler is beside me at the table, and something about my response gets his attention. When my sister repeats herself—slower this time—he’s still paying attention.
Tyler gives me a sideways grin. “Uh-oh, Charlie’s on the prowl, and his girl isn’t happy. Who’s the hottie with the nice voice?”
Um—what?
He couldn’t be more wrong. About everything. Five seconds ago, I was trying to figure out what Alice was wearing—how oblivious is he?
I punch his arm before I answer, my voice a low hiss. “That’s my sister .”
He recoils in horror—Tyler hates my sister almost as much as she hates him—but Lydia is loving every second. “The hottie with the nice voice? What happened to our rule, Ty? I thought sisters were off-limits.”
He scowls. “Oh, they’re definitely off-limits.”
“Yeah? That didn’t sound off-limits…”
They keep going back and forth, and I have to get up to hear Roxie. Moving toward the kitchen, I press my phone a little harder against my ear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her. “Sexy picnicking isn’t a thing.”
Tyler drops his pen again, and he gives me another sideways glance. He was there for the first half of that breakfast picnic—the chaste half—but he has no idea what happened after he left. I scanned that park for witnesses before Alice made a single move, and I never spotted my brother either. Where was he hiding?
Luckily, Tyler loses interest fast. He sneaks a glance at his open laptop, checking to see if he has any new DMs on the forum for his webcomic. He’s probably waiting to hear from his favorite moderator, PoisonedRose, but she’s a little busy right now.
She’s on the phone. With me.
“Yeah, that’s what Jenna said too,” Roxie admits. “She saw the whole thing, and she said it looked like normal picnicking.”
It wasn’t.
Nothing about what happened between Alice and me at that picnic was normal—there was way too much flirting. But I’m not going to tell my sister that.
“You’re still in trouble, though,” Roxie says. “You didn’t answer any of my other questions, and don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
I try to change the subject, but she’s relentless.
“Who’s the girl, and why do you have another stranger living in your house? I’ve been telling Carl for weeks you need to get rid of that grifter and his twin. Now you took in someone else?”
Roxie.
She’s the culprit. This is why Carl won’t get off my back about the Sharps all of a sudden. My meddling sister and her hatred of Tyler—a man she’s never met or talked to. At least not in real life.
I’m not sure how they met on his forum. How she accidentally discovered his webcomic and became his number one fan and favorite moderator. But I’m not going to tell either of them the truth, that as much as they hate each other in real life, they have no problem flirting online. I’m going to let that nuclear bomb detonate all on its own.
And it’s going to be glorious.
I don’t try to defend the Sharps either. Mostly because they’re right beside me, and I don’t want to make them feel bad. Besides, Roxie already knows Tyler pays for our food and utilities while Lydia does all the cooking. She just doesn’t care; my sister is determined to hate Real Tyler, no matter how much she likes Virtual Tyler.
“Kick them out,” she whispers darkly, fiendishly. Thus is the way of The Roxie. “Banish the interlopers.”
“Never,” I whisper back.
Over at the table, Tyler has gotten tired of waiting for his beloved PoisonedRose to message him. He messages her instead, and I can tell the exact moment she gets it. “Hold on,” Roxie says. “Something just came up.”
I bite back a grin. While I wait for them to finish flirting over DMs, I scribble down a few more entries for Alice’s fishbowl gift, just for fun.
Enemies to lovers.
Secret identity.
Hate kisses.
I’m not even sure what hate kisses are, but if any two people were going to have them, it’s Tyler and Roxie.
As they send messages back and forth, I can still hear Alice typing away upstairs, hard at work, and I can’t help smiling. I asked her how her new book was going on our walk earlier, and the joy on her face was everything. The fact that she’s been up there working since dinner, that she couldn’t wait to get back to her book, only makes it better.
Then everything takes a turn.
Tyler is still messaging my sister when we hear the crash upstairs. There’s a thud and a bang, and then Alice shrieks in terror. Cookie is the first to react. Springing off Lydia’s lap with an earsplitting bark, he bolts up the stairs, and I’m right behind him.
Alice stumbles out of the guest room before I can reach her. She’s wearing her Regency maid outfit, and she looks absolutely adorable—but I can’t enjoy it; I can’t even enjoy her little Betsy Ross bonnet. Not when my girl is in danger.
Cookie sprints past her, heading straight into the guest room like he’s looking for trouble. Alice tries to stop him as they cross paths, but her skirt tangles and she loses her balance, her body pitching sideways as she stumbles down the stairs. I spring forward to catch her. Grabbing her with both hands as I pull her body against mine.
So we meet again…
We stare at each other, breathless, and then her words spill out in a frantic jumble.
“Raccoon,” she wheezes. “Angry, angry raccoon. Must. Save. Cookie.”
We bolt toward the guest room with the Sharps on our heels, but we’re too late. Physically, Lydia’s dachshund is fine, but emotionally, that dog might never be the same.
The ghost squirrel turned raccoon is standing in the open window like a supervillain. He has Cookie’s beloved stuffed bee gripped in his teeth, and that raccoon makes a run for it before anyone can stop him. Diving outside and disappearing like a bandit.
Cookie lets out a lonesome howl, but it’s no use. His bee is gone—he’s been robbed.