Hold On (The 'Burg #6)(167)
He turned to look at her. “Make the offer. Be cool about it so they don’t shut us out. There’s room to move.”
“You might need a lot of room. They give the impression they’re entrenched.”
He looked back to the water.
I like water.
“I gotta get back to work,” he murmured, then turned again to his agent, leveling his eyes on hers. “Make the offer. I don’t care you gotta make magic, Diane. Get me this house.”
“Okay, Garrett,” she replied.
He nodded.
He then took another look inside the opened door at the big great room, its fantastic kitchen, its phenomenal hearth, all the warm and welcoming space.
He turned the other way and took a last look at the water, which could be seen from the kitchen. The living room. The study. The room that could be Ethan’s. The master suite, which was all the way on the other side of the house from the study and other two bedrooms.
And with one last glance at his agent, he went to his truck and got back to work.
* * * * *
Saturday Morning
Garrett was on his way out the door to head to Cher’s to help her with Ethan’s party when his phone rang.
After glancing at the screen, he took the call.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“I made magic,” Diane said.
Garrett smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
On Top
Cher
“I’m sorry, we don’t have more tiki torches.”
“How can you not have more tiki torches? This is a party place. We’re having a luau. A luau is a party. Which is why I’m shoppin’ at a party place. And you can’t have a luau without tiki torches.”
“Sir, it’s October in Indiana.”
“So?”
“We sell down stock of tiki torches after summer in order to make room for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas items.”
“You should be ready for every occasion.”
“We pride ourselves in being that. That’s why you currently have twelve tiki torches here. But I’m afraid we don’t have more right now. And just a suggestion, next time, should you want something in high quantities, if you give us a call beforehand, we’ll be happy to order it for you.”
“Twelve isn’t a high quantity. It’s a perfectly reasonable quantity unless you need twenty, and I need twenty.”
“Again, I apologize. We just don’t have twenty.”
“I barely have enough leis and grass skirts. And, just to say, neither are very high quality.”
“I’m sorry you think that as well, sir. But—”
“Yo!” Merry barked.
I jumped at the sound, pulled from my focus on my extreme annoyance at being an audience to this sheer ridiculousness when Merry and me had a ton of Star Wars and other party shit in four collective baskets, a cake to pick up, decorating to do, and later, merrymaking to achieve for my son.
Plus, my mother was at my house with my kid, helping me get ready by doing what she called “light cleaning.” This meant she was going to move shit around to where she thought it should be, which was what she always did when she jumped at the chance to do some “light cleaning” before some event I had at my house. This also meant it’d take weeks to find the shit she moved, something which was nearly more annoying than the selfish, thoughtless, in-a-hurry human population you encountered when you were out running errands (but just nearly).
Needless to say, I didn’t have time for an * on a tiki torch mission in Indiana for a luau he was giving in f*cking October.
I looked up at Merry to see he agreed.
He’d also shoved his jacket back on both sides and had his hands on his hips.
There was no badge on his belt, seeing as he was off-duty.
Thus, I wondered how this would go.
That said, Merry was tall and lean and badass. The guy with the torches was not tall and was kinda doughy, so I had high hopes it would go well…and, hopefully, fast.
“You wanna move this along?” Merry suggested, though it didn’t come close to sounding like a suggestion.
“It’s my turn at the register,” the man in front of us sniped. “You’ll get your turn.”
“I’ll get it a lot faster, you give it up about tiki torches you aren’t gonna get, seein’ as this guy can’t conjure them from thin air,” Merry returned, shifting his torso to the side only slightly to indicate the line that had formed behind us, which had at least three other customers waiting to check out. “You do that, you can get on your way so the rest of us can get on our way.”
This was a faulty strategy.
He’d called out to the man’s civility.
Since the man had none, that was totally not going to work.
“I hardly need your attitude on a day where I’m looking forward to hosting a luau,” the man retorted.
There it was. I was right.
He didn’t give a shit that he was affecting all our days with his attitude about f*cking tiki torches.
“Ditto, turkey,” the woman behind us snapped.
Surprised, I looked back at her to see a blue-haired, sharp-eyed lady with a basket filled with Frozen-themed party plates, cups, like-colored streamers and balloons, and a second basket filled almost to overflowing with bags of fake snow.