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Mattie came out of the side room where there were lots and lots of shelves of dog and cat food.
She narrowed her eyes at me as she said, “Do not call me Matt, Etienne LaFayette. I’m warning you.”
My little pint-sized terror.
“Yes, ma’am,” I capitulated. For now. “How are you?”
I walked right up to her and laid a long, wet kiss on her lips before pulling back.
Her eyes were sparkling when she said, “I just had a cat spray in my face. I haven’t had time to clean it off yet.”
I licked my lips comically as I said, “I was wondering if you were going for a new smell or not. But I didn’t want to bring attention to it.”
She punched me in the ribs, not lightly either, before pointing to the list on the counter. “There’s the list.”
I walked to it.
There were three things on it. Not the fifteen she’d said were there.
“What happened to it?” I asked as I read it over.
-Corner baseboard in exam room three.
-Smear of paint on tile floor in public bathroom.
-Leaky faucet in exam room eight.
“Diana and I spoke, and we decided that this place is perfect. In between her, me, and Bain, we decided that the other twelve on the list were something that he could do, or I could do, and it wouldn’t take up all your time tonight. So we did. Those were the things that we either didn’t have the tools to fix, or had no clue how to fix,” she explained.
I caught her up to me when she went to move past me, then buried my nose into her hair.
She really did smell weird.
We could both use a shower.
I’d spent the majority of my day working outside at our new build. It was an up-and-coming attorney’s office and would be finished sometime in about six months. We were just now in the early stages. For example, today, the walls went up. Tomorrow, it was time for roofing.
This was my favorite part, when everything looked like it was moving at the speed of light.
Soon, it’d be all the tedious bullshit that I hated—such as removing paint stains from floors.
Still.
I was happy that they’d eliminated so much from the list. Me and tedious bullshit would’ve been butting heads today, that was for sure. I was hot, tired, and wanted a beer and a burger, in that order.
Then I wanted to go lie down in my cold bedroom and watch mindless TV with my woman until it was time for bed.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
It was the third time in the ten minutes it’d taken me to get here.
“Your phone’s ringing or you’ve learned a new trick with your penis,” she teased as she reached up and tucked a stray lock of hair back into place on my forehead.
“Possibly a new trick,” I winked as I pulled my phone out.
She walked to the receptionist’s desk and picked up a pen to mark out the items on my to-do list as I did them, then picked up the paper and wiggled it at me.
Before I could get to my phone, however, they hung up.
Unknown number.
Just as fast, though, it was ringing again.
I answered it and was surprised to find Kobe on the other end of the line.
He didn’t call very much. But when he did, it was important.
• • •
MATILDA
“You’re shitting me.”
I looked up at the incredulity laced in Etienne’s voice to study his face.
He was staring at the wall with a blank expression.
I set my pen down and looked at him cautiously.
What had happened now?
“It’s on the news?” he asked, his voice rising an octave.
I got up, searched my desk for the remote to the television that we’d just hung up last night, and then turned the television on once I found it.
He took the remote from me, changed to the news channel that we never watched—my life was depressing enough as it was—and waited.
“Oh my god,” he said as his eyes read the story that was upcoming.
He hit the volume up button, then I frowned as I tried to read the small ticker at the bottom of the screen.
I blinked twice as I read the headline.
“Woman trampled twice. Once to death. The other to her afterlife.”
“What the fuck…” I asked, then trailed off when the anchorwoman started to speak.
“In other news, a hot one in Africa right now is about an American woman, aged sixty, who went to Africa with her children to hunt giraffes. In an epic game of karma, the woman was standing beside a watering hole when a two-year-old elephant came out of the water and ran her over. The woman tried to get up, but the elephant came back and trampled her to death.”
The news anchor was barely containing a smile when they switched to views of the aftermath.
