I get out of it?”
“Uhhh… A date?”
“Not good enough.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Okaaay, a date who will buy you dinner and drinks?”
She lifted her chin, a smile pulling at her full lips. “I want the Purrrr-fect Pretty Pink Palace.”
“I don’t know any men who will pony up five figures before they even meet you.”
“Not from them. I want it from you. I’ll pay for all the supplies, though we are going to have to seriously cut down on all your additional quartz and gold leafing.”
I brought my hand up to cover my mouth in a worthless attempt to hide my smile as she continued.
“And I want to set you up too. I’m not the only loser at this table. If you think it’s so easy to find me Mr. Right, then it’s only fair you have to suffer through Mrs. Right along with me.”
“So let me get this straight. First, I have to find a man willing to go out with you. Then convert your guest room into an apartment for your cats and pay for dinner and drinks for a woman I have zero interest in going out with?”
She nodded like a genie. “That’s correct.”
I mimicked her nod. “Hard no.”
Remember that part about how much I loved to fuck with her? Well, it could be said that she loved to fuck with me more. So. Much. More. I could only imagine who Lex would set me up with if she thought it was out of some kind of revenge for me forcing her to go out with a completely decent guy. I wasn’t sure if she had a connection with the trolls who lived under the bridge, but I’d have been willing to bet she’d sell her soul to make them in order to give me hell. No fucking way I was signing up for that cruel and unusual punishment.
Unless…
“You let me buy the Chevelle.”
Her mouth fell open. “No fucking way.”
I wasn’t much of a car guy. I had my work truck and had been toying with the idea of buying an SUV for the weekends, though her grandfather’s fully restored cherry-red-with-white-racing-stripes 1970 Chevelle SS was enough to make my cock hard. That car was the pinup model of vehicles. She’d inherited it when he’d passed away four years earlier, and in that time, it had sat in a storage unit across town. A beauty like that deserved the open road where she could let all four hundred and fifty of her horses run. But no, Lex kept that fine piece of American craftsmanship locked away like her private automotive captive.
I slid forward in my seat, resting both arms on the table. “Hear me out. What’s to say you aren’t going to set me up with someone awful just to have a little fun? We gotta have stakes in this bet.”
Bet. Three simple letters, but it might as well have been a flute-playing snake charmer for her.
She straightened her back and brushed her long, red hair off her shoulder. “You have my attention.”
Of course I did. The only thing more lethal than a bet would have been the reemergence of the triple-dog dare from our childhood, but I wasn’t about to pull out all the guns just yet.
“Three dates,” I said. “Three good dates. No funny business. No games. I’m talking real people we think the other might like. If you find someone for me and we hit it off in a way that ultimately ends in a relationship, I’ll build you the cat-astrophe in your guest room.”
Her eyes lit.
And I lifted a finger in the air. “But! If I find someone for you, you have to sell me the Chevelle.”
She stared at me for a long beat, but I’d already won. I had no idea if I could find the perfect guy for her. But suffering through three dates was a small price to pay for her finally letting me try.
The Chevelle was just a bonus.
Maybe she could find me someone that would slip into my life the way Mark had slipped into Lauren’s. Or Vanessa into Cal’s. Though I wouldn’t be ordering the braided trim for Boop and Beep’s custom balcony anytime soon.
“Deal,” she said, extending her hand across the table.
I gave her hand a firm shake. “Just make sure the tank is full when you deliver my new baby.”
I’d been pretty confident, initially, that I could beat Hudson. That was until I actually had to put my money where my mouth was and find him a