She peeks at me through her fingers before dropping her hand back down and picking up her mug. “I swear I put it out. I’m never lighting a fire indoors again.” She takes a sip. ”There’s no point in delaying it, I guess. She’s always up at the crack of dawn. She needs to tell the buyer’s agent about what happened. Thebuyers wanted to move in quickly, which isn’t going to happen anymore.” A sigh. “They’ll need to look for a new place.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Sandro, another early riser. “I’ll be right back,” I say to Blake.
She nods.
I prowl down the hallway and turn into the formal dining room I haven’t used even once so that Blake won’t overhear. “Hello?”
“Happy Thanksgiving, you cranky bastard. How was the rest of your night?”
“You know, under normal circumstances I’d be cussing you out right now for waking me up at this unholy hour.”
“These aren’t normal circumstances?”
In the background, I hear Blake start talking on the phone to her realtor.
“Is someone in your house?”
Apparently, Sandro hears her too.
“Yeah, Blake’s here.”
He groans. ”Seriously?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.” I peer down the hall. Blake’s still sitting on the sofa in the living room, all hunched over, saying something in a strained voice. “There was a fire in her house, so I brought her over here.”
“A fire? How did that happen?”
“How do you think?”
“Don’t tell me you started it so you could convince her to come over,” he says with a laugh.
I move deeper into the dining room, paranoid Blake will hear even though I know it’s impossible.
Sandro’s laugh trails off until all that remains is a loaded silence. “Hey, I was joking.”
I grunt.
“Are youserious? Jesus fucking Christ. I can’t believe it. You started a damn fire?”
“Keep your fucking voice down. Do you want to wake up your neighbors?” I snap. Has he forgotten how thin those walls are?
“You went back there after we left?”
“Hmm.”
He’s laughing again, so hard he’s wheezing. “You’re a crazy bastard. Absolutely deranged.JesusChrist. I could tell you didn’t like it when she said she was leaving.”
“She has no real plan,” I growl, keeping my voice low. “She’d be asking for trouble if she just up and left.”
“Oh, so you did this for her benefit? Right. Got it.”
“Fuck you.”
He cackles again. “No, please enlighten me as to your rationale here.”
“I just didn’t want her to leave, all right? Not yet.”
A beat passes. “Interesting.”
