Boom - Sabrina Stark Page 0,90

itself wasn't for fun, and the missing phone wasn't helping.

And now, Arden was saying, "Then maybe you should've learned it by heart."

"Is that so?" I asked, "Do you know my number by heart?"

She paused. "What?"

"My cell number," I said. "What is it?" When I heard fumbling on the other end, I added, "And don't look in your contacts. That's cheating."

"Cheating, huh?" With a sleepy laugh, she said, "Well, that's rich."

"Meaning?"

"Forget it."

I didn't like where this was going. "What, you think I'm cheating on you?"

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "You can't 'cheat' if we're just screwing around, right?"

I gripped the phone tighter. "What?"

"Sorry," she said. "What I meant to say is, we were screwing around, as in past tense."

Fuck.

Okay, I realized that I had some explaining to do, but the more she talked, the more aggravated I was getting, too. "Listen—"

"No. You listen," she said. "Whatever you're up to, I don't care. I just want to buy the house and be done with it, okay?"

What the hell?

Again, with the house?

I asked, "What are you getting at?"

"Just what I said. I want to buy it."

"With what?"

"Money," she said. "What else?"

"I already told you, you can't afford it."

"That's what you think."

"Wrong," I told her. "It's what I know."

"No. You're wrong," she said. "After I get my bonus—"

"Forget the bonus," I said. "You'd need double that for just the down payment."

"Excellent," she said. "Because I have it. There, it's settled."

Settled, my ass. There was no way on Earth that Arden had come up with that kind of money in less than a day. She was bluffing.

She had to be.

But hey, I'd play along if it would take the edge off. I asked, "So, where'd you get the money?"

"That's none of your business," she said. "But trust me, I've got it."

It didn't sound like a bluff. And now I took a moment to think. Had she come into a decent chunk of money? It seemed unlikely, but hey, stranger things had happened. When I returned home, I'd get to the bottom of it. Until then, we were just spinning our wheels.

I said, "We'll talk when I get back, alright?"

"And when will that be?"

"A week, maybe sooner."

"Terrific." She sighed. "And when you get here, where exactly will you be staying?"

"At the crew house. Where else?"

"But don't you have your own condo?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So why don't you stay there instead?"

If I wanted to be a dick about it – which I didn't – I might've told her that I owned the crew house, which meant that I could stay there any time I wanted.

But this was Arden, and she meant something to me. And hey, if the situation were reversed – if she'd taken off with no warning – I'd be pissed, too.

With an effort, I softened my tone. "Because you're not at the condo."

"That's right," she said. "And I never was. Why is that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she said, "why is it that I never – not even once – saw the place that you call home?"

It was a good question, one I should've been asking myself. The truth was, the condo didn't feel like home. It never had.

But the crew house, it felt different, almost like a real home, even if I'd been living out of a duffle.

Giving it some thought, I suddenly realized why it felt different. It was because of Arden. She made the crew house – as unimpressive as it was – feel like something I'd never had.

Come to think of it, it was the same way with the house we were fixing up. And that place wasn't even livable.

Holy shit.

Home was where she was.

It was the only thing that made sense.

The realization was a kick to the gut, and I wasn't ready for it.

I got another nice kick when Arden informed me that if I was planning to return to the crew house, she'd be finding a different place to stay.

This wasn't what I wanted to hear.

Still, I tried to keep my cool. "Listen, I don't want you to go."

With a humorless laugh, she said, "Oh, I just bet."

The more she talked, the less I liked what she was saying. But I was the one who'd messed up, and I didn't want to make it worse.

What I wanted to do was hop on a plane and fix this, whatever it was. But I'd flown out to California for a reason, and the reason hadn't changed.

The house in wine country was next on our list, and it was dangerously behind schedule – even