Frankie’s eyes narrowed. “Are you texting a woman? Perhaps the one who showed up at midnight two nights ago?”
“What makes you think it was a woman?”
“Are you saying it wasn’t?”
“I’m saying, what makes you think it was?”
“You’re smiling like it was.”
“I’m smiling like a man basking in the glow of your emotional growth.”
Her gaze sharpened, suspicious but also a little amused. “That better not be a dig.”
“Scout’s honor.” He flashed a grin, turned, and walked out before she could see that he was sweating bullets under the smile.
Because sabotage wasn’t supposed to feel this much like foreplay.
Chapter 29
Frankie sprawled across the mattress, smug and boneless. Post-vibrator clarity was a hell of a drug. Her earlier vibrator joke, dangled like an engraved invitation, had failed because she’d handed him a mile of foyer and three minutes to forget. Rookie move. Next time she’d keep the line holstered until pillows were in play and his brain had shifted into low-power mode.
Marketing fail.
She stared at the ceiling and sketched Version 2.0 in her head. Her vow to use him as a friendship dummy still stood. She’d just upgraded the test to Friends with Perks.
Before she could spiral into thoughts of why that contaminated the friendship test, his voice floated up the stairs.
“Francesca! You’ve got a visitor. And he’s brought a gift.”
She sat up. “Is it couture?”
Silence.
Padding downstairs, she braced for either a Girl Scout with overpriced cookies or a bookstore customerseeking revenge for being handed the wrong happily ever after.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Quiet and Mysterious,” she said when she spotted George. “You bringing me flowers? Chocolate? A severed head?”
George paled, shoved a cat carrier at her, and mumbled, “Welcome to Gi Gi’s Crossing. We have a town tradition. No one leaves without adopting one of our strays.”
Frankie crouched and peered inside. A gray puffball glared back with one eye, its whole face radiating contempt for happiness.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, delighted. “He looks like he already hates me. Perfect.”
“Don’t take it personally. He hates everyone,” George said, grim as a man delivering bad news. “It was his turn to be gifted. Again.”
She blinked. Again? Had someone adopted and then returned this homeless ball of snarls? How rude. “I have always wanted a cat with as much attitude as me.”
From the corner, Marcus stiffened. He watched her with a look that said he didn’t trust whatever game she was playing. Then again, how would he know she had a soft spot for the unsheltered? She’d never told him about the eviction notice Dad had ignored. Three months unpaid, not because he couldn’t, but because he was a dick. Then he left.
She crouched beside the carrier, her voice low and conspiratorial. “You and me, gremlin. Let’s ruin some lives together.”
“Name’s up for grabs,” George muttered, edging for the door.
“I dub thee…Sir Hissalot, Duke of Disdain.”
“Here’s his stuff,” George blurted, pointing to a tote by the door before bolting.
Frankie rummaged through it. Toys, a litter box, and a book on how to train a cat. “Fabulous. A textbook for teaching a cat, which everyone knows is impossible. Challenge accepted.”
