To which I heard Oliver shout from the office, “I’morganizingit! Have you seen your files?”
“I know where everything is!” Yafir cried, and then in a panic he ran back in. “You better not touch anything! I have it all where I can find it!”
“That doesn’t help when someone else needs to find it, my guy.”
“I amnotyour guy.”
“Are those chocolate chips in the bottom of this filing cabinet? And what’s with all this shredded paper down here? Wait, is that—”
There was a sudden shriek, and both men threw themselves out of the office as quickly as they could and slammed the door closed. Oliver couldn’t figure out how to lock it, while Yafir dragged a chair from the hallway and propped it under the doorknob. The door opened inward, so it was a shit barricade, anyway.
Oliver told Yafir, “We’re going to need dynamite.”
“At least a bazooka,” Yafir agreed.
“Maybe some machetes. The National Guard. Did you see that thing? It was huge. The size of a cat.”
“I knew something had been rustling around in there, but I thought this house just made noises. You were very brave.”
“Thanks, my guy. I saw my life flash before my eyes.”
As they commiserated, Juliette came up the stairs, clipboard clutched to her chest. She asked me, “What’s going on?”
I sighed. “I think they found a mouse.”
Juliette blinked. “In our office?”
“Sadly.”
I waited for her to gasp and join the men in their dramatic upheaval of being bested by a rodent, but she just asked me to hold her clipboard and went up to the door. She removed the chair and surveyed the battlefield. “I’m going to need a broom and two oven mitts,” she told them, like a surgeon preparing for work, as she closed the door again. “And a container.”
An hour later, Juliette had captured the mouse and let it go outside. When Oliver asked her how she’d managed to get so brave, she simply shrugged and told him that she’d lived in New York City most of her life, and those rodentswereactually the size of cats.
I agreed. “And some of them even like pizza.”
Oliver declared, “I will never live in New York for as long as I live.”
“You just need a rat wrangler,” Juliette supplied.
“Good thing I know one,” he replied with a wink.
She hid a blush behind her clipboard, and excused herself down the stairs. I gave him a look, and he shrugged.
“What? I’m being truthful.”
“You’re a tease,” I pointed out.
He smirked and leaned into me. “You like it,” he purred, and slipped down the hallway toward his bedroom. I was glad to see him retreat, because I think my cheeks blushed as red as Juliette’s skirt today, and I fled out of the house and into the garden, where I would rather contend with Damnit than any feelings I definitely didnotwant to inspect. I had not imagined that Lilymoor would be a summer of firsts, but I think this was the first time in my life I’d ever been this flustered by not one man buttwo.
Rus’s voice echoed in my head—I fear you are exactly his type.
If that was true, then who was Rus’s type? And why did I even care?
Somewhere—wherever dead people went—I was sure Harriett was laughing at me. I hoped she liked the view.
25
dustsceawung
