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Marlowe didn’t feel like joking with her grandmother. Seeing Jace had deflated her. “I doubt that’s one of the job’s requirements.”

Grandma gave the men a parting wave. “If I’d known firemen were this good-looking back when I was in my twenties, I would’ve gotten stuck on a roof long ago.”

“A lost opportunity, for sure.”

Grandma lowered her voice. “I noticed you spent a lot of time talking to the blond one. Did he ask for your number?”

He didn’t have to ask. He already had it. Or maybe not. Maybe he’d deleted her contact information right after their breakup. “He’s someone I knew from high school.”

“It seemed like he wanted to get reacquainted.”

Doubtful. Marlowe glanced over her shoulder at the retreating fire truck. “He has a girlfriend.” Marlowe knew that much because one of her friends was roommates with Jace’s twin brother’s girlfriend.

And even if Jace had been unattached, he wouldn’t be interested in a woman who wasn’t headed anywhere impressive in life.

There was only one good thing that had come out of this run-in with Jace Clark. The universe had held up a mirror to Marlowe today and shown her just how lacking she was. She was twenty-three. Soon she’d be transitioning from the she’s-still-figuring-her-life-out category to becoming the-girl-who’d-peaked-in-high-school.

Fortunately, Marlowe still had time to do something about that.

Lark Springs had a satellite campus for a community college. She’d been thinking about taking a business class, a program that didn’t require a degree. Her situation was limited because the business program that worked best for her required in-person classes every Wednesday night from six-thirty to nine at night. It would be starting up again in a week and a half.

When Marlowe had mentioned the idea to her parents last year, it caused problems. Between Grandma’s diabetes, which she wasn’t great at staying on top of, and her quest to defy age—or at least ignore it—her parents were firmly against leaving Grandma alone for hours at a time. This was the reason Marlowe dropped Grandma off at the senior center before she went to the salon each day and the reason she didn’t work weekends.

Grandma, on the other hand, had insisted she would be fine by herself for any amount of time, let alone one evening, and had been insulted that anyone in the family thought differently. She had outright refused to have a “babysitter”.

When Marlowe had pressed the idea, her grandmother had said, “Why do you need classes to tell you how to run a beauty salon anyway? You’re there all the time. You know everything already. You just need an appointment with a loan officer, a good location, and a large dose of moxie.”

As though it were that simple. Half of new businesses failed within five years. To prevent being part of that too-popular group, she needed to learn marketing techniques, business analysis, and probably all sorts of things she wasn’t even aware of.

Grandma refused to budge on the issue. So did her parents. And rather than start a family fight, Marlowe had shelved the idea.

It was time to get that goal back off the shelf.

Marlowe walked her grandmother back inside and the two settled into the couch. Grandma turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, filling the room with a discordant mix of commercial jingles.

Marlowe shifted on the couch to face her. “You love me, right, Grandma?”

Grandma adjusted the volume on the TV. “You’re about to ask me to promise I won’t climb on the roof again, aren’t you?” She held up one hand to stop that line of conversation. “It’s best not to ask me to make promises I can’t keep. What if another pigeon colony decides to set up camp there? You’re afraid of heights and neither of us is good enough with my rifle to ensure we don’t knock out a window.”

“I’m not afraid of heights. I just didn’t want to risk my life to set up a scarecrow on your roof. The neighbors would’ve complained about that, and besides, Joe from the pest control place left you a magnet with his contact info if the pigeons came back. It’s on the fridge with all your souvenir magnets and the ones I made you in elementary school. You can get rid of those, by the way.”

“Can’t. I’m sentimental.” She turned up the volume as though this would end the conversation.

Marlowe took the remote from her and muted the TV. “Mom and Dad aren’t going to be happy when they hear about the fire department stopping by to rescue you.”

Grandma frowned, affronted. “You’re not going to tell them, are you? Snitches get stitches and all of that.”

“I don’t have to tell them. Everyone who lives on the street had a front row seat. The only reason Mom and Dad haven’t already phoned to yell at both of us is that your neighbors are polite enough to wait until a decent hour before they call and rat you out.”

Grandma scowled and crossed her bird-thin arms over her robe. “You’re probably right.”

Oh, Marlowe was definitely right. “I’d better send out some preemptive explanations.”

“Your parents worry too much,” Grandma said. “They never should have given all of my neighbors their phone numbers.”

It was time to roll out Marlowe’s plan while Grandma was less likely to argue about it. “Since my parents are going to yell at me, and since I had to face my ex-boyfriend in my pajamas, I feel like I should be able to ask for a favor and you should automatically agree to it.”

“Ex-boyfriend? Wait, is that who that man was?” Grandma tsked and shook her head. “He’s a looker. You never should’ve broken up with him.”