Danica looked kinda stricken. “I mean… I’m not even sure why you’d say that,” she said as she pulled out two more bakery boxes and set them on the island.
“I wonder.” I watched her, crossing my arms over my chest. “Hey, Danica. What’s in the boxes?”
“Just some lemon wedges, Ashley. And croissants and Danishes,” she said, as she started laying the boxes open.
“Three boxes’ worth? There’s two of us.”
“Well… your neighbors might be hungry.”
“Uh-huh. See what I mean?”
“Really,” she said, “if I’m bringing a few, I might as well bring a few more, right?”
“Right. And then there was your overly generous free consultation—”
“Those are pretty standard.” She threw me a sidelong look that was probably meant to shush me.
Didn’t work.
“With the amount of work you put into it? I doubt that.”
“Doubt away,” she said cheerily. But I knew I was right. She’d definitely gone overboard on the consultation and follow-up, before she had any financial commitment from me. Hadn’t even billed me yet, either.
“And your candles…” I added, as I watched her unpacking some from one of the bags.
“Not a big deal,” she repeated.
My eyebrow rose steadily as she kept pulling them out of the bag like clowns from a clown car. “Seven of them?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure how big your house was, and I thought at least one per room is nice…” She threw me a glance, and bit her lip when she found me staring at her. “They’re just candles. I had some extras kicking around.”
“No, they’re your kindness. You’re thoughtful. You’re genuine and caring and generous.”
“I mean, I try to consider other people’s feelings.” She turned to me. “It’s the right thing to do, right?”
“Says who?”
She shrugged. “I guess it’s just the way I was raised.”
“Yeah? Everyone in your family’s like that?”
I knew they weren’t. I’d met her family. I’d never met a more self-absorbed group of females in my life, and I’d met plenty of models, actresses, trust fund babies. It was a wonder, actually, that Danica Vola wasn’t a raging spoiled bitch.
“Well…” she said, shrugging, “we’re all different people. You might’ve, uh, gathered that.”
“What’s in the other bag?”
“Oh. That’s takeout. From the Starving Wolf.”
In other words, my favorite restaurant. “See what I mean?”
“I just thought you might be hungry…”
“Yeah,” I said. “You thought.”
“You, um, seemed to really like their buttermilk fried chicken when we were there for dinner,” she said as she started pulling takeout containers out of the bag. “I got the lunch sandwich version.”
“You brought me buttermilk fried chicken sandwiches. Like, six of them,” I noted, as she piled the containers on the island. “From my favorite restaurant.”
