Page 7 of The Accidental Dating Experiment
THAT’S A THANK-YOU GIFT
Monroe
She stares slack-jawed at the document on my phone. “Is this for real?”
Like I’d show up here without doing the research. “Fun fact—you can gift a house to someone,” I say.
“Without them knowing?” Her eyes are wide.
“Yes. I googled it this afternoon. It’s what’s known as a gift deed.”
The crease in her forehead deepens. “Eleanor gift-deeded us her house? In Darling Springs? Your hometown?”
Juliet’s shock is understandable. I’ve had a few hours to process the magnitude of the gift. Sadie and I had grabbed a cup of coffee in the dingy café next to the bare-bones studio, where we reviewed the recent Heartbreakers and Matchmakers emails. Today’s included this one from an attorney letting us know that Eleanor had sent us—in her words—a little something.
“Apparently, it’s a thank-you gift,” I explain, trying to keep my cool about this unexpected generosity. “She’ll also pay the gift tax on it. I gave her attorney a quick call to confirm all the details. And I spoke to Sawyer since he’s done some business in Darling Springs recently and knows the property value there.”
Her brother isn’t an attorney, but he is my college friend and was scoping out real estate there for his growing business.
“What did he say?”
“What I suspected—it’s the hot small town.”
After he confirmed the red-hot potential, he remarked curiously, “You and Juliet scoring a house from a listener? That’s something I never thought would happen.”
“You and me both, buddy,” I said.
“Will you live in it? With her?”
I nearly choked.
“I live in San Francisco,” I said, stating the obvious. I didn’t want to tread anywhere near the thought of living with Juliet in any capacity. Sawyer doesn’t know about our week-long fling all those summers ago. Nothing came of it, so there was no need to mention it, then or now.
Juliet still looks gobsmacked, running her fingers through her thick chestnut waves while she sorts through the words on the screen. When she raises her face, she studies me skeptically with those bright green eyes. “So you’re really not here to mock me. To laugh, not with me, but at me?”
She’s so doubtful it’s kind of adorable. “That’s your concern? I show you this, and you still think I came to tease?”
She gives me a Why would I think otherwise look. “That’s kind of your thing.”
“On air,” I point out. I mean, it’s a persona, all that poking. Mostly. But I don’t want to talk about us. I want to focus on the holy shit gift that’s landed in our lap. “It’s not every day someone gives you a house. I wanted to tell you as soon as I had the details. So I was waiting outside?—”
“Waiting for my date to flop,” she says.
Now’s not the time to hurt her when she’s down. No need to tell her I was pacing as the clock struck nine, confident there would not be an ExtraDate, a combo date, or an extend-a-date.
“I came here only to discuss this house,” I say and that’s mostly true. Fine, the jerk in me likes the fact that her date went as I’d suspected. The jerk in me is also the reason I’m divorced, but I can’t resist adding, “It just so happened your date was a douche.”
She has the worst taste in men. She’s also too nice to people. I’m not sure which is the bigger issue in her dating life. All I know is I wanted to stab that guy with an olive toothpick.
Fortunately, Mister Cheese Douche is gone, and I won’t be arrested for attempted murder.
“And now we’ve got…a vacation home?” she asks, reading the screen to verify for a second or third time. As she does, I steal a glance at her date attire, taking in the details of Evening Juliet.
That red top sloping slightly off one shoulder, offering just a hint of her pale skin, so tempting to touch.
Her eye makeup, a little smoky and seductive.
And that tempting lipstick she applied for someone who doesn’t fucking deserve her. As her friend—okay, frenemy—and her co-worker, I definitely care who deserves her. So far, the answer is no one.