Page 19 of Suddenly Dating
“You said you had vermin. Get rid of the rats.”
“Oh, that.” Lola glanced across the house. She could see a light in the hallway that led to the extra bedrooms. “Yep. I’m going to handle that, too, not to worry.”
They chatted a little more and hung up. Lola polished off her dinner as more images of Birta filled her head. And then, after she “tidied up,” as requested by the most Humorless Harry, Lola was so entranced by the idea of being besties with a famous author that she settled down with her laptop and notes to work on her book.
But that blank page continued to stare at her.
Seven
At 6:00 a.m., Harry emerged from his new bedroom at the northern end of the house with the smaller bathroom, the stiffer bed, the non-lake view, and he was starving. He hadn’t eaten last night as he’d stewed about this newest complication in his life. He’d waited around, hoping she’d go to bed, at which point he intended to raid the damn kitchen—assuming, of course, that she’d left him anything to eat. But he hadn’t felt comfortable entering the kitchen while she was there, looking around for something to nosh on while she dined on that dish that had smelled so damn delicious.
But did the roommate from hell give him the space he needed? No. She had talked on the phone. Then he’d heard her typing away at something. Another phone call, this one with a lot of cackling. And then banging around in the kitchen. He’d fallen asleep sometime after he heard the TV power up and Jimmy Fallon begin to do his monologue.
To say Harry was in something of a sour mood was an understatement. To say that his blood pressure skyrocketed when he turned on the kitchen light was also an understatement. The kitchen was in a shambles.Unbelievable. What about their chat last night? Had he not been clear about picking up after herself? Apparently not, because once again, dishes were piled in the sink, there were crumbs on the counter, and the cutting board had not been cleaned. Not only that, her lacy bra was still hanging off the back of the bar stool, a bright slash of pink against dark leather.
Harry picked up that dainty piece of underwear and marched to the master bedroom. The door was ajar; he pushed it open and stepped over the threshold.
The mess was worse in here. There were clothes everywhere, shoes scattered across the floor, a pile of books stacked haphazardly on the hearth. He made a move toward the bed to wake her, but stepped on something that crunched under his boot. He looked down to see a mangled red plastic Solo cup.
The sound startled Sleeping Beauty awake—she shot up, her hair a wreck, and blinked at him. “What are you doing?”
“Returning this to you,” he said, and tossed the bra at her.
It landed on her shoulder. She removed it, held it up to see what it was. “Where did you get mybra?” she exclaimed, as if he’d snuck in here and taken it off of her while she was sleeping.
“Oh, I don’t know—where I get most bras. Hanging off the back of a barstool in the kitchen.”
She blinked. “Oh yeah,” she said, nodding, as if it all made sense now.
“I hope I don’t have to explain that a kitchen bar stool is not the place to hang your bras. Or that you should clean up the kitchen after you use it.”
“What?” She tossed the bra onto the floor and fell back against a mound of pillows. “Ididclean up the kitchen.”
That left Harry speechless for a moment. “If you call that clean, we’re gonna have a problem. This isn’t your house, Lola. None of this belongs to you,” he said, making a circular motion with his hand. “The least you can do is keep it clean.” He turned on his heel, crunching the Solo cup again, and walked out.
“Hey, just a damn minute!” she shouted after him.
He heard the bed squeak, heard her pounding across the bedroom floor. When he looked over his shoulder, kitchen lady was marching toward him wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties. He wondered if she even realized it. Or maybe she’d left her pants in some weird place, too, like, say, the garage.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” she said hotly.
“Like what?”
“Bossy!”
“Says who?”
“Me! I say!”
Harry slowly turned to face her, and folded his arms across his chest. “AndIsay you can’t trash someone else’s house.”
“It’s nottrashed.It’s a little cluttered. And besides, it was late!”
“What has that got to do with anything? You could have put the dishes in the dishwasher while you were cackling at everything Jimmy Fallon said.”
Her eyes widened. “First of all, I do notcackle.And second, he is really funny! Just becauseyou’resome sort of obsessive-compulsive neatnik is no excuse to talk to me like I’m your kid.”
Half of her hair was hanging over her face. Didn’t that bother her? He wanted to push it out of her face. “I’m not obsessive-compulsive. But I do have basic standards.”
