“Back up. You left her in bed?”
“To make breakfast. What part of that don’t you get?”
“Did you tell her what you were doing?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. Last night was great and I wanted to show her this morning what it meant to me.”
“By leaving her in bed?” Miles shook his head with disappointment. “So she woke up and was alone. And then she comes downstairs and you’re chummy with everyone else, including Jessika, and then kind of ignore her.”
“I didn’t ignore her. I know how private she is, and I wanted to be respectful of that.”
“By giving her a doughnut? No wonder she’s mad at you.”
Decker gripped the back of his neck. “Man, how do I fix this?”
Miles sighed. “How did you get your ladies’ man reputation? Because you don’t seem to know very much about women.”
“When it comes to women, I know a whole lot, but when it comes to this woman, I don’t know, I guess I’m all thumbs. Two left thumbs.”
This woman turned him upside down and inside out and he had no idea why. It had never happened before.
“Okay, so here’s what you gotta do. Step one, you’re going topick her some flowers from the garden. Step two, you’re going to apologize. And when that doesn’t work, because it’s not going to work, move on to step three.”
“Which is?”
“You’re going to get on your knees and you’re going to grovel and explain that you’re an idiot and take the blame.”
“Okay.”
“Then you’re going to pull her into you and give her that good morning kiss and say, ‘I’m sorry, I should have done that to begin with.’ Lastly, you’re going to say, ‘How are you feeling? I want to know what you’re thinking so I can make sure this never happens again.’”
“Then what?”
“Go back to groveling.”
DIARY ROOM:
Miles: You can only lead a horse to water, you can’t make him think. And right now, my uncle isn’t thinking straight.
22
She was definitely ignoring him.
How was he supposed to grovel if she wasn’t in the same room with him? He could always go theSay Anythingroute but that seemed a little too cheesy for her. Then there was theStrictly Ballroomslide, where he slid into the room on one knee and asked her to dance. That was a good one except for his bum knee, and the fact that she might think he was proposing.
Huh. He used the wordproposingand didn’t break out in a panic attack. Strange.
So Miles’s way it was. But instead of flowers he put together a bouquet of wrenches and ratchets. It was a risk, but she loved a good ratchet.
He walked the entire house and found her in the kitchen with Kiki laying tile, which was a one-person job. It seemed wherever she went she made sure to have a buffer there.
Even though the tiles were all laid out in a pattern on the counter, Kiki would hand her a tile and Poppy would apply it to the tile cement.
Decker walked into the kitchen and caught Kiki’s eye. Hersnarrowed into two threatening lasers. He felt his balls shrivel up and hide. Damn, for five-foot-two that woman was scary as shit.
Kiki gave him theHurt her and I’ll cut your dick offlook and then handed him the next tile.
“Thank you,” he mouthed.
