He had slipped his grand gesture into her Birkin last night. A carefully clipped article, his truth wrapped in someone else’s words. He’d left the bag on her porch because seeing her would have cracked him open. If she liked it, she’d come. If she hated it, she’d come with a flamethrower. Either way, not a phone call.
His phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
He snatched it up. “Unless my house is on fire—”
“Oh, Babycakes, I hope it’s not,” purred an unfamiliar voice. “I want to see what that firm handshake can do in person.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t be shy, Maximilian the Hammer. I saw your ad in theSenior Citizen Gazette. I do love a man who appreciates a strong, mature woman.”
He pulled the phone away and stared at it as dread crawled up his spine. Grand gesture? Grand disaster. Revenge was still very much on.
His landline started bleating. A relic he’d assumed was for show, like a diner’s rotary phone or the moral compass he’d tried testing around Frankie. The message light.
“Hey there, Hammer. I’m Mildred. I’m ninety-two, but my spirit is young. Call me.”
Click.
“Marcus? It’s Betty from book club. Is this real? Are you actually—”
Click.
“Do you take couples?”
Click.
“Question. Condoms. True extra small or husky extra small? I have some leftovers from my late—”
Click
“No,” he said to his empty kitchen. “No. No-no-no-no—”
HONK.
He looked up. Through the trees, across the gravel, there it was. Ziggy’s pink Jeep. Frankie in the passenger seat, trunks stacked in the back like a glamorous crime scene from a realityTV finale.
His pulse spiked. She was leaving without a word. After what he’d given her.
His phone lit with her name. “Fuck that.” He charged outside.
Frankie saw him. The phone stopped ringing.
“Now!” she shouted over the thump of music.
Ziggy hit the gas. The Jeep fishtailed through a broad, shining puddle, sending a sheet of mud straight onto Marcus.
He stood there, dripping. Stunned. Coated in betrayal.
It hadn’t rained in a week.
She had made the puddle.
Specifically for him.
