Page 94 of Just One Little Bargain

My phone lies beside my plate, screen dark. I check it for the ninth time.

“Evie.” Daisy’s voice is gentle but firm. “It’s fine.”

“I’m aware it’s fine.”

“Then stop staring at a blank screen every forty-five seconds. What’s the worst that could happen?” she asks breezily.

The plumbing bursts. A guest has an allergic reaction. Milo accidentally reveals his horns, makes a door swing open without touching it, or gets asked a simple question about his hometown and tells the truth.

“The building could catch fire,” I say flatly.

“Milo wouldn’t let it burn down.” Maddie spears a piece of braised carrot. “And nights at that place are dead after nine, anyway. Guests are either asleep or reading in their rooms. He’s probably on your couch, petting that horrible cat.”

She’s right. The frustrating truth is that Milo has been consistently helpful in ways I can’t dismiss anymore. He learned the breakfast routine in two days. Yesterday, he noticed the porch railing wobbling before I did, and fixed it with tools he’d never touched, following a YouTube tutorial on my phone.

He wants to help. That part isn’t performance. I’ve watched enough people perform helpfulness to recognize how it curdles around the edges when someone is doing it for credit rather than because they care. Milo doesn’t curdle. He gets genuinely upset when he gets something wrong.

But there’s a bargain hanging over all of it. Each act of kindness could be a strategy. Every gentle moment could be groundwork.

I sink my fork into a walnut and crush it.

Maddie props her elbows on the table. “Tell us about the living situation.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Where does he sleep?” Daisy asks, and her tone is innocent but her eyes are not.

“The couch.”

“Does he actually help, or does he stand around looking pretty, holding towels?”

“I just said he helps.”

Maddie tilts her head. “Have you seen him shirtless?”

“Madeline.”

“That’s a yes.”

“It was an accident. He didn’t understand that the bathroom door locks are there for a reason.”

“And?” Maddie circles her hand in the air, demanding more.

“And nothing. I saw it, I left, it’s not relevant.” This is a lie of significant magnitude. It’s been very relevant. I’ve replayed it more times than I’m prepared to disclose.

“The flush creeping up your neck says otherwise.”

I press my cold glass against my throat. “He’s good-looking. Fine. I’m not telling you something you don’t already know.”

It’s not even the shirtless thing. He rolled his sleeves up to do the dishes yesterday, and I lost a whole sentence over a man doing the chores I asked him to do.

Maddie presses the point. “I want the domestic intel.”

“The domestic intel is that he’s always there. On the couch. In the kitchen. He memorizes the way I organize things and follows the system without being asked. When I skip meals, he leaves food beside me without a word. And he doesn’t make a move,” I add, which is the actual crux of my situation. “We’ve had these moments. A lot of them. I know if I leaned in, he’d let me kiss him. And every time I lose my nerve and step back, he lets me go. He’s decided the next move has to be mine. Which is frustrating.”

“So you’re the problem,” Maddie clarifies.

“I keep chickening out. And because he never crowds me, I get all this room to stand there and list the forty reasons I shouldn’t, until the moment’s gone and I’ve talked myself out of the one thing I actually wanted.”