“It’s Viv. And be careful, huh?” I called down.

“Impossible woman,” he muttered. His hands traveled a little farther up my leg, inside, and then around the back of my knee. And then I felt . . . well, it felt like . . .

“Clark! Did you just lick—”

“No!” he yelled, wrenching my foot free at that exact moment and pushing it up through the porch. I fell backward, my leg pulling clear of the wood and my heart pounding. I saw him crawl out from beneath the porch, dust himself off, and then walk toward me.

I pointed at him. “You licked my leg.”

“I did nothing of the kind,” he said. But the tips of his ears were red.

Flap-flap-flap-flap.

“Ah crap, I forgot about that.”

“You’re kind of a two-crisis girl, aren’t you?” He laughed, reaching behind his toolbox and picking up a lacrosse stick.

“That’s what you brought to kill a bat?”

“It was either this or my squash racket.” He took a few practice swipes at the air. “Besides, we’re not going to kill it. We’re going to catch it, then let it go.”

“There is no we. There’s a you, as in you are going to get the bat!”

“It’s your house, you should be helping me,” he said. “And for someone who acts so tough, you sure are scared of a little thing like a bat.”

“I’m not scared!”

When he had the nerve to make a bowing gesture, as if to say well then, go ahead on in without me, I grumbled, “Okay fine—I’m a little scared. I’ll help you, but you’re going in first.” I stood up and brushed off my shorts. I now had another scrape to match the one on the other leg. Honestly.

I rummaged in the garage until I found a rake and a bucket, then rejoined Clark on the porch. Stepping over the hole, I huddled behind him as he opened the front door. We went inside, alert and listening.

“Is something burning?” he asked, sniffing the air.

“Dammit, my dinner!” I wailed, rushing past him and into the kitchen. “Motherfucker!”

“Vivian!” Clark exclaimed, hurrying past me to turn off the burners. Smoke billowed from the oven, my chicken br**sts now charred beyond recognition. Rice? Now a cake in the bottom of the pan. And the vegetables? Crust. I started throwing the pots into the sink, probably slamming them a little harder than necessary. I was pissed at the porch, pissed at the house, pissed that my leg hurt, and pissed off that I still had a bat in the house. A bat in the house!

 “Were you expecting someone for dinner?” Clark asked from the doorway to the dining room. His face looked tight—hurt?

I glanced past him and saw the candles burning on the table. “No, that was just for me,” I replied, pushing past him and blowing out the candle.

“You lit candles just to eat alone?”

“Yeah. So?” I asked, turning back to him. I saw the bat. It was perched on the lacrosse stick, just behind his head.

“Oh. Boy. Um, Clark?”

“I think if you want to light candles, even if it’s just you, that’s perfectly okay,” Clark said, nodding at me.

“Right. Agreed. But right now? You need to—”

“I mean, after all, if you don’t think you’re good company, no one else will, right?”

“Totally. Can I just—”

“I eat most of my meals alone too, although I’ve never thought about lighting candles. Not sure a guy doing it would be seen as being quite as empowering as it is for a girl, rather sad actually. But shoot, I’ll try anything once I suppose. So good for you, Vivian. Light a candle why don’t you, you deserve it. Even if it is just chicken or—”

“Duck.”

“Or duck, exactly, even if it’s—”

“Fucking duck, Clark!” I yelled, lunging in with my rake and swatting at the bat.

Clark hit the deck and I knocked the bat off the back of the lacrosse stick. “Bucket! Bucket!” I yelled, and he slid it across the floor. Slamming it down on the bat, I sat on top of it, giving a war cry. “Wahoooooo!” I lifted the rake high over my head in victory.

It caught in the chandelier and damn near ripped the entire thing out. And as it hung from the ceiling, swinging back and forth, I sat on a bucket in the middle of my dining room, with a bat under my butt, and a librarian under the table.

Cue lightning and thunder.

Cue crashing rain.

There was nothing I could do but laugh.

There were no leaks, though—so there was that.

Chapter nine

Clark could rally, I gotta give him that. Twenty minutes later the bat was set free, the windows were all closed against the torrent of rain that was lashing at the house, and I was perched at my kitchen table with one Mr. Clark Barrow at the stove. Wearing an apron he’d found hanging in the pantry, he was scrambling me some eggs and making toast like it was his job.

“Well, what else were you going to do?” he’d asked when he’d first suggested helping me make something else for dinner.

“Order a pizza?”

“You’ve got eggs and bread; how about I make us something to eat? It’ll give the rain a chance to slow up before I head home,” he said, and I agreed. And now here he was, cooking for us both.

I’d warned him about how temperamental the stove was, but he had the hang of it. “My Nana used to have a stove just like this one, I’m used to it,” he said, expertly flipping the burners and lighting it just so.