and delicately moved her out of my way. “What would you have done if I wasn’t here?” I asked, as I pressed the tissues to the wall firmly, ending the siege.
“I would have gone to Sloan and Brandon’s.” She squeezed herself against the door frame as far as she could go while I walked the dead spider to the toilet in her guest bathroom.
I flushed the tissues and turned to her. “Let me get this straight. You’ll pack up and leave for a spider, but you have a prowler in the backyard and that you just ride out?”
“My priorities feel straight.” She looked around me at the toilet like she wanted to make sure it actually went down.
“That spider looked pregnant, by the way. Thank God you called me when you did.”
She flapped her hands and squeaked a little and I laughed at her. I crossed my arms and leaned in the bathroom doorway. “We got a call for a spider last week. Believe it or not, it was one of the least stupid calls we went on.”
“I actually get that. I was close to calling 911 myself.”
I chuckled at her.
“Well, thank you,” she said. “If I can ever return the favor, let me know. Like, if you ever need a porch plant killed, I’m your girl.”
I smiled and we both just stood there. Neither one of us made a move to go, even though it was late.
A mischievous grin crept across her face. “Are you tired?”
I liked the glint in her eye and I had no intention of ending this night if she didn’t want to, no matter how tired I was. “No.”
“Do you want to go TP Sloan and Brandon’s house?”
My laugh made her eyes dance.
“I know it’s a little tenth-grade retro,” she said. “But I’ve always wanted to do it. And you can’t TP a house alone—it’s a rule.”
“We’ll have to show up there tomorrow and help them clean it up. Pretend it’s just a lucky coincidence,” I said.
“Can you borrow a tool from Brandon? I can text Sloan in the morning to tell her we’re going to pick it up. She’ll cook if she knows we’re coming. Then we’ll get breakfast and atone for our sins.” She grinned.
A half an hour later I was crouched behind my truck two houses down from Brandon’s, game-planning with Kristen. She still hadn’t taken out her curlers.
“If they wake up,” she whispered, “we scatter and reconvene at the donut place on Vanowen.”
“Got it. If you’re captured, no matter what they do to you, don’t break under interrogation.”
She scoffed quietly. “As if. I can’t be broken.” She snatched her roll and darted from behind the truck.
We made short work of it. Operation TP Sloan and Brandon’s was completed in less than five minutes. No casualties. We got back into the truck laughing so hard it took me three tries to get the key in the ignition. Then I noticed she’d lost a curler.
I got unbuckled. “No curlers left behind. It’s Marine Corps policy.” We got out for a recon mission on Brandon’s lawn.
I located the fallen curler under a pile of TP by the mailbox. “Hey,” I whispered, holding it up. “Found it.”
She beamed and jogged across the toilet-papered grass, but when she reached for the curler, I palmed it. “You’re injured,” I whispered. “You’ve lost a curler. The medics can reattach it, but I’ll need to carry you out. Get on my back.”
I was only about 50 percent sure she would go for this. I banked on her not wanting to break character.
She didn’t skip a beat. “You’re right,” she whispered. “Man down. Good call.”
She jumped up and I piggybacked her to the truck, laughing the whole way.
Those thirty seconds of her arms around my neck made my entire night.
Once we officially made our getaway and were driving from the neighborhood, she turned to me. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?”
I wanted to do anything that meant I got to spend more time with her. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, turn left here,” she said. “It’s a surprise.”
We drove a few miles and then she directed me into a vacant parking lot in a strip mall on Roscoe Boulevard near her house. “Park there. This is it.”
I pulled into the empty lot and put the truck in park. “Well? What’s the surprise?”
None of the businesses were open. It was almost 1:00 in the morning.
She unbuckled herself and sat facing me, her legs tucked under her on the seat. Her eyes sparkled. “Look.” She