Page 15 of The Homemaker

“I think I’m being hustled.” I narrowed my eyes at her.

Her red lips curled, revealing her white teeth. “Oh, I’m taking pity on you by missing one on purpose.”

“Christ,” I mumbled, tossing the first bag, missing the board all together because she had me so rattled. The second bag made it onto the board, two feet from the hole. The third bag slid into the hole, and the fourth slid off the end.

“Getting it into the hole twenty-five percent of the time isn’t bad.” She pulled her glasses down her nose for a second while giving me a look, an ornery gleam in her eyes.

Was that a shot at my manhood?

“So tell me, Murphy,” she collected her bags, “does Arnold Palmer’s owner know you stole him?”

“I did no such thing.” I tried not to roll my eyes when she hit the hole again. “My neighbor, Rosie, found the cat, and she asked if I wanted him. I said, ‘Nope.’ So she feeds him, and I think she even took him to the vet, but she won’t let him in her house. She’s nearly eighty and widowed but refuses to be ‘an old cat lady.’ He hangs out here, unless it’s time to eat. And during the winter, I let him stay in my garage. He keeps the mice population in check.”

“So he’s basically your cat.” Again, she only missed tossing one bag into the hole.

“He’s absolutely not my cat. There’s a robin’s nest in that tree. The tree is mine, but the birds are not. Palmer is a neighborhood cat. Everyone knows him and likes him, but no one wants to invite him into their home.”

“Huh. That’s sad. Maybe he should sleep with me while I’m here.”

“No pets in the rental.” I shot her a stern look before tossing my bags.

“Oh, gotcha. Winky wink.Nopets in the rental.”

“What? No. What’s with your ‘winky wink?’ Nowinky wink. No pets in the rental. Period. No exceptions.”

“Cats are clean and curious. Excellent companions,” she said.

Only two of my bags made it onto the board. “Are you kidding me?” The last bag I tossed pushed her fourth bag into the hole, but my bag stopped short of dropping.

“No. I’m serious. Cats are?—”

“I’m talking about my stupid bag, not your incorrect facts about cats.”

“What’s incorrect?”

We gathered our bags.

“They are not excellent companions. Dogs are.”

“That’s your opinion. But it’s a fact that they are clean and curious.”

I used three of my bags, tossing them into the air to juggle. “Oh yeah? Well, I’m clean and curious. Does that mean you want me in your bed?”

Shit.

That sounded different in my head. There went my perfect host rating. Who would want to stay at my place after Alice’s one-star rating with a review that stated how I asked if she wanted me in her bed?

“Sorry, Murphy. Once again, I can’t risk letting you fall off that high pedestal.”

She took a weed whacker to my manhood in the most subtle ways, and she did so with a smile. Of course, I wanted to know if she was really suggesting I might not be good in bed. But I couldn’t ask her. After all, the customer was always right.

“You won,” I said.

She beat me in less than five minutes.

Alice rested a hand on her hip and nodded slowly, inspecting the boards like a crime scene. “Sorry about that. I’ll let you win next time.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “Are you serious? You’llletme win? That makes me feel great.” I laughed.