“As soon as I find out where they’re going, I’m calling the bursar’s office,” I told him in mock seriousness. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“I’ll accept if you take these cookies.” He thrust the box at me. “Give them to Lexi. She couldn’t take any more when she was leaving earlier because Mrs. Tremblay was standing right there. Oh! I shouldn’t have told you that. The cookies aren’t for the help.”
“I hope you’re giving these out to any staff in the building, and not wasting the food, since they’re the only ones eating them,” I said, frowning.
“I am,” he assured me, dropping his voice. “Just don’t tell the board that.”
“I am the condo board,” I reminded him, also lowering my voice. “And I won’t say a word.”
“Good man.” He slapped me on the shoulder.
I felt oddly lighter as I took the elevator up to the penthouse.
The tension settled in the back of my neck and dug into my temples when I stepped off the elevator and was confronted with the note on my front door.
Positive Vibes only. This means you, Grayson Richmond.
I pulled it off and stuffed it in my pocket.
I stalked through the penthouse and found another note above the fireplace when I headed to my study. I removed it then read it.
“As if I would ever own a TV.”
The TV had blared constantly in the cellar, at the various group homes I’d occupied, and in the dorms in college. The one thing I had promised myself was that when I finally had my own place all to myself, I would never have a TV. I’d only have blessed silence. Books were enough for me.
And even if for some reason I did lose my mind and buy a TV, I especially wasn’t watching children’s shows.
There were more notes in the study. She’d found the one I’d left under Marcus Aurelius.
If you’re fishing for a compliment about your behind, you got it! You have a nice butt. I can tell you work out. Keep up the good work … HOT STUFF!!!
I bit down a smile. I would not give her the satisfaction.
There was another note on the bookcase.
Admit it. You smiled.
I rolled my eyes.
Upstairs on my bed was a piece of paper that was littering pink glitter all over the dark-gray bedspread:
So he can read and write but can’t buy an armchair or a rug. The world is truly a mysterious place.
In the closet:
Wear this tie tomorrow. It makes those lovely green eyes pop.
There were notes in the bathroom, in my shoes, and in the music room with its solitary grand piano.
Lexi hadn’t found all of the notes, I discovered with a perverse sort of pleasure. I wrote a note to her and carried it to the kitchen to leave it for her to find.
There on the exact center of the kitchen counter was a single, solitary pink cupcake. Rose gold foil wrapper with a mound of pink icing and festooned with bright-red cherries. I circled the cupcake like it was a bomb going off.
The note was decorated with sparkly heart stickers.
Stop stressing so much. Everything happens for a reason.
PS: IT’S NOT TOXIC POSITIVITY IF IT COMES WITH A CUPCAKE *smiley face*
