Chapter 6
Chapter Six
T he following Wednesday morning, Ivy emerged from her bedroom with rumpled hair wearing the UMaine sweatshirt and pajama pants she’d slept in.
“Good morning,” Sloane greeted her brightly. “I was thinking of making avocado toast for breakfast. How does that sound?”
“Sounds great. High five, Aunt Sloane.”
Sloane didn’t point out that a high five did not pass muster in terms of etiquette. Instead, she tapped her palm to her niece’s upraised one?—
Movement in her peripheral vision drew Sloane’s face to the side in time to see a mouse run across the living room rug.
Ivy gasped. Sloane screamed.
“Run!” Sloane ordered, taking off toward the door. Nobly willing to sacrifice her life to protect Ivy, she waved for the girl to exit the apartment first, then dashed out after her. Sloane plunged down the stairs with her arms above her head as if she was on a roller coaster.
It was only when they’d sprinted several yards along the driveway and were standing surrounded by nothing but space—no place for a mouse to hide—that Sloane stopped, heart racing.
Some of the places she’d lived as a girl had been seedy enough to have issues with rats, mice, cockroaches, spiders, flies, and more. Once, she’d opened the pantry door to reach for a box of cereal and a rat had leapt forward and bitten her on the shin. Her father hadn’t taken her to the doctor, the wound had become infected, and it was only thanks to Sloane’s third grade teacher and the school nurse that she’d received treatment. The physical scar of that bite had faded. The mental scar had not.
Shuddering, she shook out her arms and legs. While doing this jig, Sloane caught sight of Max, sitting at his outdoor table as he did every morning.
He stood and crossed to them. “What’s the matter?” he called, still several yards away.
She started to reply, then realized she didn’t have enough breath to do so. She gulped air. Pointed an accusing finger. “There is a mouse . . . in your house!”
His posture relaxed. “Are we speaking in rhyme? If so, Sloane . . . don’t moan. You yelped. Now I’ll help.”
Ivy released a snort of amusement.
“Don’t you dare patronize me! Ivy’s parents are paying good money for us to live in that apartment and clearly the pest control is subpar. Which is an issue you need to rectify immediately .”
He had the gall to look as if he found this entertaining.
“We obviously,” she said, “cannot go back in there until that terrible?—”
“Fire-breathing creature?”
“Disease-carrying varmint has been removed. And since Ivy needs to change clothes and get ready for the day before I drop her off at the church in an hour, let me emphasize just how quickly the situation needs to be dealt with.”
A smile spread across his lips, molasses slow. A glint in his eyes, he took in her outfit.
With a bolt of realization, she comprehended that she was standing before him in a pale-yellow silk pajama set and slippers. She hadn’t yet pulled on the robe she always wore while having her coffee and devotional time outside. The cut of her pajama set was modest. Yet silk was not the most concealing of fabrics. Also, she hadn’t brushed her hair and knew it must look like a tumbleweed.
“You were scared, I see. I will rescue thee,” he said.
Ivy laughed.
Oh, she hated him in those joggers and that white T-shirt, with that black hair, which, unlike hers, looked fabulous when messy.
Sloane glared at him so venomously that it should have obliterated him to ash. “You seem to find this hilarious, but Ivy and I were scared out of our wits just now. Where is your sympathy?”
“Aww. Were you scared out of your wits?” he asked Ivy kindly.
“More surprised than anything.”
“Sorry. Need a hug?”
“Yes, please.” Max and Ivy shared a brief hug, then he opened his arms to Sloane. “Do you need a hug, too?”
“Not even if my life depended on it. What are you going to do about this?”
“I’m going to go up there and see if I can shoo the mouse away.”
“There can’t be any seeing if you can shoo the mouse away. There must be literal shooing away of the mouse.”
“Where was the mouse?”
“Living room.”
“I’ll carefully search the living room. If I don’t come out in ten minutes, call the fire department.” He climbed the stairs and disappeared into the apartment.
“You okay?” Ivy asked Sloane.
“I’m fine.” Though, truthfully, she still had a case of the heebie-jeebies. She made a cringy face and picked through strands of her hair to make sure the mouse wasn’t hiding inside it.
They waited. Sloane greatly missed her robe. It wasn’t as warm outside as it had been in the apartment.
She hoped to see their apartment door open and a mouse scramble out, followed by Max. But when he came out, he came out alone.
He returned to them. “I couldn’t find the mouse. Which I believe means he’s returned to wherever he lives.”
“What if he lives in our sofa cushions?” Sloane asked.
“I was thinking more that he’s returned to where he lives in the forest .”
“Ivy and I can’t reenter that apartment without a clear-cut resolution to the mouse issue.”
“What do you suggest?”
“An immediate visit by a professional.”
“Fine. I’ll get someone here today.”
“And this person won’t kill the mouse,” Ivy said worriedly. “Right?”
“Um,” Max said.
“I’m sure there are pest-control companies who’ve figured out how to remove mice alive and, you know, release them into the wild.” Ivy looked at Max with entreaty. “I’m a rat mom.”
“A what what?”
“I have two rats that I really, really love. I can’t stand to think that anything bad would happen to the mouse. Because I’d never want anything bad to happen to Kevin and Ricky.”
Personally, Sloane cared not at all whether the mouse found its happily ever after.
“I’ll see if I can find a pest-control company that releases mice into the wild,” Max said with a straight face.
“Thank you! It will really creep me out if I have to live in an apartment where a mouse was murdered.”
“We will have a conversation about mouse mortality at a later time,” Sloane told her. Then, to Max, “From the apartment, we’ll need clothes, toiletries, our phones, my laptop, and my purse.”
“You want me to go in for your clothes and toiletries?” he asked skeptically. “And paw through your drawers?”
“I’ll go in with Max,” Ivy volunteered. “He can be my mouse bodyguard while I grab our things.”
Max made gun hands with his fingers. “No need to sob,” he said to Sloane, “I’ll do my landlord’s job.”
He was an ogre. A sad excuse for a person.
Max and Ivy entered the apartment together.
Sloane checked her watch repeatedly during the five minutes it took them.
“Did you see the mouse?” Sloane asked as they neared.
“Nope,” Ivy answered.
Where is the mouse? It really might be in their sofa cushions.
“Ivy told me that you two were just about to have breakfast when the mouse invaded,” Max said. “So I invited her to have breakfast at my place and she said yes. Will you join us?”
Sloane didn’t want to share breakfast with him. Nor accept his charity. However, as their landlord, he did somewhat owe them food and coffee seeing as how they couldn’t access the food and coffee in their apartment. “I’ll join you.”
Max held his back sliding door open for them. Like the last time she’d been inside, she noted that the air carried a subtle note of citrus—a smell Max had always liked.
Even as a college student short on money, he’d had great taste and kept his living quarters in good shape. His current house reflected those qualities as well as his net worth.
When she thought of the interiors of Victorian houses, she thought of very small rooms and spindly, feminine pieces of antique furniture. That stereotype was not this. Max had definitely enlarged the space from what it would have been originally by removing walls and increasing openings between rooms. The furniture was masculine and sophisticated. He’d gone more for a showplace than for a cozy home. Which was typical Max. He liked comfort but he liked the trappings of success more.
“Wow!” Ivy said. “Your house is so pretty.”
“Thanks. How about I make you my specialty, raspberry waffles?”
“Awesome,” Ivy answered.
“We’ll help,” Sloane said. Good manners demanded she and Ivy do their part. “I’ll go change clothes and be right back. Excuse me.” She carried one of the tote bags Ivy had removed from the apartment to a half bath under the stairway.
Oof , she thought when she looked in the mirror.
Clothing, shoes, makeup, hair, nail polish. All of it helped her feel confident and in-control. She’d been devoid of everything but the nail polish this morning. She regained composure with every item she put to rights.
Emerging a few minutes later dressed and presentable, she felt much more like herself as she entered a kitchen that boasted oak cabinetry and enough white quartz on the countertops and backsplash to have exhausted a quarry.
Ivy was chatting comfortably as she poured batter into a waffle iron. Max turned bacon in a skillet. Sloane went to work brewing coffee, then poured waters and orange juice. When the meal was ready, they settled at the breakfast table positioned next to a bay window.
This felt . . . oddly intimate.
“Delicious,” Ivy proclaimed. “I’ve never had a raspberry waffle before.” She was shoveling far too much dazzled admiration Max’s way for Sloane’s comfort.
Sloane wanted to warn Ivy, Don’t trust him . But she couldn’t voice that while he was hosting them for breakfast. So she simply gave herself the admonishment.
Don’t trust him, Sloane .
Napkin in her lap, she bolstered herself by consuming breakfast in the most elegant way known to man.
“Are you taking any summer school?” Max asked Ivy.
“Only a driver’s ed course.”
“Which class did you find most challenging your freshman year?” he asked.
“Algebra.”
Sloane had to admit that Ivy was right about the deliciousness of the waffles. They were divine.
Max swallowed a bite of bacon. “My advice as a graduate of Penn’s business school is to get really good at using a math calculator. You don’t need to be able to do anything on paper or in your head. The calculator can do it faster and more accurately.”
Sloane cleared her throat, setting down her utensils. “Well, this graduate of Penn’s business school believes there’s a great deal of merit in learning concepts using pencil, paper, and your brain.”
His pale green gaze flicked to her. “I’m not surprised to hear that’s your stance.” His attention returned to Ivy. “Your aunt is old-fashioned about some things.”
Frustration toward him heated to a simmer. “I’m every bit as technologically advanced as you are.”
“Says the person teaching other people habits established hundreds of years ago to the person running a company that caters to the reading tastes of modern-day people.”
“I’m the person,” she immediately countered, “who came up with the inspiration for the company that caters to the reading tastes of modern-day people.”
“Please pass the syrup?” Ivy interrupted with a mix of cheer and desperation. “Any other tips for me, Max?”
“Use AI as a tool.”
“But never to do your work for you when your teachers are asking you to do the work,” Sloane stated.
“Attend every tutoring session your teachers offer and win them over with your charm. That will often bump up your grade.”
“Be kind because kindness is important not because you’re trying to manipulate your way to a better grade.”
“Avoid boys until you and they are twenty-four years old. Only then will they be mature enough to deserve you.”
“I recommend avoiding all men under the age of thirty-five.” Sloane gave him a pointed look. “They’re astonishingly immature until that age.”
“Success is the best revenge,” he told Ivy.
“Worldly success is not everything in life. Chase it and you’ll end up lonely and unfulfilled.”
“Great wealth takes the edge off loneliness and unfulfillment.”
“I could name many wealthy celebrities who prove that statement false.”
“All I can say, Ivy, is that I’ve found it hard to be miserable while driving my Porsche and living here in my mansion.”
Sloane set her lips together in order to maintain decorum.
For the rest of the meal, Max concentrated the full power of his attention on the girl, getting her talking about her great passions. One, rats. Two, watching other teenagers make crafts on YouTube. Not making those crafts herself, mind you, which stumped Sloane. But simply watching other teens make crafts.
The instant they’d all finished breakfast, Sloane rose and carried her tableware to the sink. “Ivy, can you be ready to leave in ten minutes?”
“Sure.” The girl headed to the bathroom.
“You don’t need to do that,” Max said, referring to the fact that she was rinsing the dishes and sliding them into the dishwasher.
“Ivy and I clean up after ourselves.”
He moved around the space, putting things away. “I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to find an exterminator who believes in a catch-and-release system with mice. If I can’t get someone to the garage apartment today, will you be comfortable sleeping there?”
“No.”
“Then how do you feel about sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms here?”
“Similar to the way Princess Leia felt when held prisoner by Darth.”
His grin had sharp, predatory edges. “I’m Darth Vader?”
She lifted her shoulders. “The two of you are honestly so similar.”
“Would you prefer taking your chances with the mouse or being a prisoner of Darth?”
She considered. “Darth.”
“In that case, I’ll show you the bedroom options.” She followed him up the stairs, wondering how a morning that had begun as normal and peaceful had come to this.
Max’s bedroom, bathroom, and office dominated the second story. He continued up the next flight of stairs. They reached the third level. “There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms on this floor. If you and Ivy need to stay here tonight, you can take your pick. All the sheets are clean. All the bathrooms are stocked with towels.”
Like the rest of his house, everything on this level appeared to have been remodeled by an expert designer.
They backtracked downstairs, Sloane striving not to compare this gorgeous, historic house to her simple home in LA.
In the foyer, he opened a drawer. “Here’s an extra house key.” He dropped it into her palm, a smug sparkle in his eyes.