it and realized it was a bundle of artificial mistletoe, the cheap kind they sold in drugstores in September, October, November, and the first half of December, at which point they began selling valentines. The previous tenants must have put it up for the holidays, then forgotten to take it down before they were transferred. Or were run out of the neighborhood by a concerted possum attack. Or voles. Or a plumbing explosion. Or a short in the kitchen wiring. Or a double homicide.
She shook her head. “I don’t want it back. Where’d you even find it?”
He was looking at her like she was the weirdo walking around with fake mistletoe after crashing (uninvited) on the Curs(ed) couch. “It was under my pillow. I found it while I was folding up the blankets.”
“How tidy of you.” WTF? “Well, thanks, I guess.”
“So you didn’t plant the mistletoe?”
“Is that a pun?”
“Not on purpose,” he admitted.
“The only way to pun is accidentally,” she agreed. “But now that we’ve got that out of the—uh, you’re standing really close.”
He was peering down at her like a sexy scientist scrutinizing a slide of something weird and great. (Not her best metaphor. It was hard to think when he was standing so close and looking at her so intently and smelling so terrific. What was that cologne? Eau de Jump Me?) “So you didn’t leave it for me?”
She blinked up at him. “You think I wander the house stuffing fake plants under your pillow in the desperate hope that you’ll find them and come see me?”
“…no?”
She snorted at the obvious lie, and the inelegant sound made him smile. In another couple of seconds, she was leaning on him and they were both giggling like sleep-deprived morons. It wasn’t funny, and yet it was hilarious. Punch-drunk, she figured, only without the punch. She reached up and grabbed him by the ears, pulled him down, and gave him a sound kiss, smack on the mouth. It was the least romantic kiss she’d ever given—and maybe that he’d ever gotten—but what the hell. He’d earned it, even if he had lied about expecting it.
She gave him a gentle shove. “Go away, I’ve got more unpacking to half-heartedly get back to. And give me that.” She snatched the plastic mistletoe from his grasp.
He went to the door, then turned back, looking not a little hopeful. “Should I look under my pillow again tonight?”
“You can if you want, but it’ll be a waste of time. I’m burning this unholy talisman, no doubt the product of some sorcerer’s lair…” She squinted at the label. “…made in China.”
Well, no. She couldn’t burn it—she and fire didn’t always get along. Maybe she’d bury it in the backyard like a dog. If she left it lying around, one of the kids might bury it for her.
“Bye, Lila.”
“Take your time coming back,” she called. “Seriously. No rush. No rush at all.”
“But I will come back,” he replied, and she grinned in spite of herself.
Chapter 23
“Christ, lad!”
“I’m sorry,” Oz replied. “I did warn you.”
They were in IPA’s terrible break room because Berne hadn’t eaten yet (and after the pics, might not for a while), and Annette generally kept two or three courses in the fridge.
The break room was less terrible than it had been six months ago. It was a windowless room about half the size of an elementary school classroom, and it took up the middle of the floor like Mount Doom with a microwave.
Which was fine, or at least bearable. But then Nadia Faulkner’s lunch escaped, mated within the walls, and produced more than Nadia—even five Nadias—could gulp down. The carpet had never been cleaned. Nor the area beneath the sink. Nor the area above the sink. The room’s history, plus Nadia’s lunch teeming everywhere, brought out the apathy in everyone.
All that could be managed, if not for the fact that IPA was staffed with savages.
(“Wait, we have a garbage disposal? Here I’ve been flushing my shrimp shells in the ladies’ room like an idiot!”)
And teaching the savages basic break room courtesy had taken forever.
(“Wait, shrimp shells clogged the disposal? What, I should throw the shells out the window? That’s littering!”)
Then, and only then, had Oz dipped into his private funds and had the place thoroughly cleaned, the fridge and microwave replaced, the old carpet torn out, and converted it from “vile cesspool” to “passable break room if everyone just does their fair share.”
And who better to decide what everyone’s fair share was and call out