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I grabbed shorts and a shirt and left them on the counter in the bathroom. Then I headed to the garage. Hauled out the ladder, easily accessible since I’d recently used it to clean gutters. Propping the ladder against the house, I climbed, then stopped halfway. The window was fully shut. If it’d just been the screen down, I could pop it open, but nope. Jillian must have closed the window at some point and forgotten. Knowing her, she’d probably locked it too, on instinct.
Sure enough, at the top of the ladder I met a tightly sealed window. Breaking it would be a pain to deal with later, let alone an expense, and I was already close to exceeding my parents’ budget after Mom wanted a granite counter in the upstairs bathroom. Not to mention, shattering the window could spook the bat. Glass shards could cut the bat if it tried to fly through in a panic. Jillian didn’t want to hurt the bat.
I stared at the window a few minutes, thinking through options. Finally, I returned to ground and put the ladder away. Inside, I made the decaf coffee and set out a second mug for Jillian.
She emerged from the bathroom with hair wrapped in a towel wearing my plain gray T-shirt. My light blue mesh shorts hung to her knees.
It was downright sexy.
“Hey, you made that coffee.” She moved past me and poured herself a mug as if she did this with me every day. She sipped. “Thank you. Now about the bat.”
“The window is closed.”
She threw her head back. “Ugh. You’re right. I shut it last night. Locked it too. Whoops.”
“Figured that’s what happened. We’ll need another tactic.”
“Let the bat have a free night at the B&B?” She scrunched her shoulders. “The best move is probably calling animal control in the morning. The last thing you want is a bat to the face if you open the door.”
Yeah, and then the bat would tear through the rest of the house, attacking my freshly painted walls. “You’re probably right. How about I’ll take the couch. You can have my room.”
She leaned her back against the kitchen counter. “I can’t take your room. I’ll take the couch.”
“It smells like paint down here. Just take my bed.”
“I can handle lingering paint fumes. The couch is fine.”
“What if the bat gets out?” I asked. “If it flies down here, it’s open season.”
A horrified look crossed her face. “Are you trying to scare me into sleeping in your bed? How is the bat going to get out of a closed bedroom?”
“How’d it get in there?”
“I doubt it took the stairs.”
She eyed the couch with distrust. I grinned.
“Don’t you look that way!” She pointed at me with her mug. “You’re trying to trick me.”
“Into taking the better offer, yeah.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And then what? You’ll sleepwalk upstairs and tank out across my restful body? You’ll steal all the covers.”
Didn’t sound too bad to me. “Except I don’t sleepwalk.”
“You did that one time. Fifth grade. And then you dressed in your mom’s clothes.”
I rolled my eyes. “I was awake. I was just really tired and confused her shorts for mine because they were the same color.”
She was laughing now. “Those shorts had pleats and a logo from Ann Taylor Loft. Why were you changing clothes in the middle of the night, anyway? See? Sleepwalking.”
I waved her off. “You and Gabe ragged on me for that for two years. And it wasn’t the middle of the night. You guys were up watching movies.”
“Yeah, well, agree to disagree.”
“One day you’ll admit you’re wrong.”
“No wrongness to admit to.” She set the coffee aside and unwrapped the towel from her head, shaking out her hair. She finger combed until soft waves formed around her face. I watched every movement.
