Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight (Stephanie Plum #28)(54)

“So, you decided to leave?”

“It was one of those mutual decisions. They said I was demanding and disruptive. Can you imagine? Have you ever known me to be demanding and disruptive? I don’t think so. I might have a strong and assertive personality, but I consider that to be a positive attribute.”

“The nurse said you shouldn’t stay alone tonight.”

“Yeah, I thought I could stay with you. Plus, you got an elevator. If I go home, I have to walk up some stairs with my stupid gunshot leg.”

I called Diesel and told him to bring a lot more food.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked Lula.

“My clothes and my purse and my meds. They said I didn’t have time to get dressed. They put everything in that plastic bag and got me into a wheelchair. The wheelchair was the good part. I liked getting wheeled around. We should stop at a drugstore and rent me a wheelchair so you can get me up to your apartment.”

“Really?”

“A motorized one would be even better,” Lula said. “I could take it to Walmart and Target.”

“You’re planning on walking sometime soon though, right?”

“Heck yeah, I can walk now, but why walk when you can ride? Only thing is, if I’m always in the chair no one is going to fully appreciate my superior derriere.”

“That would be a shame.”

“Damn skippy. I got a whole wardrobe based on boobs and booty.”

“So, I guess we should skip the wheelchair?”

“It was just one of those thoughts,” Lula said. “I was weighing the merits.”

“What about clothes?” I asked. “I got you a comfortable dress yesterday but that’s it.”

“I’ll be okay until tomorrow. I always carry an extra thong in my purse in case I get an IBS attack, and I’m wearing the hospital gown and robe, so I don’t need sleep clothes.”





CHAPTER TWENTY


I found a parking place close to the back door to my apartment building and Lula and I slow-walked to the elevator. I got her into the apartment and stretched out on the couch.

“Do you want ice cream?” I asked her. “Or would you rather wait for dinner?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“I’m not sure. Diesel is bringing it.”

“Say what?”

“He’s temporarily living here.”

“I thought he was in a motor home.”

“Oswald toasted it.”

“Lucky you,” Lula said. “What’s Morelli got to say about this?”

“He’s cool.”

“Uh oh.”

“What uh oh?”

“Morelli should be nuts. He’s Italian. He’s supposed to be doing a lot of arm waving and yelling about you living with another man. You know what this means, right?”

“That he trusts me?”

“Heck no. It means he’s cheating on you.”

“He’s not cheating on me.”

“How do you know?”

“I guess I don’t exactly know,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure.”

“Aha!” Lula said. “There you have it.”

This had me doing a mental head-slap. It was becoming more and more clear why they kicked her out of the hospital.

“Do you want ice cream, or not?”

“Sure, I’ll have some ice cream.”

I gave her a pint of ice cream, a spoon, and the television remote.

“Is this a new television?” Lula asked. “I don’t remember you having a big television like this. You had one that was a step away from rabbit ears.”

“Diesel bought it.”

“Uh oh!” Lula said.

I wasn’t buying into the uh oh this time. I went to the dining room table to see if my email was still All Oswald All the Time. I opened my laptop and wasn’t disappointed.

I was still at the table when I got a call from Grandma.

“The strangest thing just happened,” she said. “Your mother ran out of yarn, so she did a yarn run before your father came home for dinner.”

“Where was he?”

“He had to fill in with the cab. Willie Small came down with a bursted appendix and they were short a cab for the commuter rush hour at the train station. Anyway, I was in the kitchen and there was a knock on the front door, and I opened it without thinking. I was making gravy, and you know how you have to keep stirring it while it cooks down. You’ll never guess who it was?”

“Oswald?”

“Yes! I recognized him from his picture. He pushed past me and rushed in, looking all around. And then he ran through the house, out to the kitchen and upstairs, opening doors and slamming them shut.

“I’m calling the police,” I said to him. “I gotta make gravy.”

I guess Oswald decided I was dumber than he originally thought.

“If I wasn’t so caught off guard, I could have snagged him, but my gun was upstairs. I thought about whacking him with the fry pan, but I had gravy going in it. It was the good cast iron one. I suppose I could have gone after him with the carving knife, but I’ve never been good with a knife. And he was moving fast like a crazy person. His eyes were squinchy and his forehead was frowny.