Page 64 of Falling for Her

“No.” She shakes her head. “I have a laundry service. But I said I would do laundry, so here I was trying to do laundry. She didn’t say don’t put bleach with black clothes.”

“Who?”

“The woman on the video. She said it was color-safe, so I thought laundry bleach was OK with colors. I mean, ‘color-safe.’”

“You watched a video on how to do laundry?” I’m trying really hard not to laugh. She’s obviously been trying not to freak out and probably spent all day trying to fix it.

“Yeah. I even rewashed everything, in case somehow that would make it better, but it just made it worse. So now you know I can’t do laundry and that I can’t cook either.”

“You can’t cook?”

“No. I’ve been taking Asa to lunch at the bakery every day, and we’ve been having frozen pizza at night.” She holds up her hands. “But I also bought frozen veggies, and I steamed them to go as a side for the pizza.”

“What were you cooking for dinner tonight?”

“One of those frozen lasagna trays. The box said to bake at 350 degrees, but it was going to take like over an hour. I thought if I turned up the temperature, it would be ready sooner, so I put it to five hundred and well—” she points to the garbage, “you can see for yourself.” She takes a big, deep breath. “So now you know I can’t cook, I can’t clean, and I can’t do laundry. I’m completely incompetent to do this job. So I’ll leave now and you can call Mrs. Larue, and she can take care of Asa the way you like”—she puts her hand to her stomach—“even though I still stand by my decision to take him fishing and horseback riding.” She glares as I roll my eyes. “I don’t care if it pissed you off. He’s been safe this whole time. I would never let anything happen to him.”

“Are you done?” I ask her, and she nods her head. “Anything else you would like to get off your chest? Now is the time.”

“Okay, fine, but this one is minor. One of Asa’s red shirts got caught in the white towels, and well . . . his shirt is now pink, and some of the towels have a nice tint to them. But it’s hardly noticeable.”

I walk closer to her and see the heap of clothes in the chair, all splotched in different shades of brown, not one black item in the bunch. “So did you wash all my dark things?”

“Pretty much,” she says. “I mean, I heard tie-dye is making a comeback.”

It’s then that the dam bursts, and I start laughing.

The back door opens, and Asa sticks his head in. “Is it safe to come in?”

“Safe?” I ask.

“I may have told him that breathing in burnt food was poisonous,” she mumbles, eyes closed. “I panicked.”

I wave him inside.

“Hey, Dad.” He joins me by the chair. “Those are all yours.” He’s doing a better job of not laughing than I did, but I can see it’s a struggle. “She was not happy. We need a new machine.” I whip my head to Finley.

She rolls her eyes. “Obviously, it’s the machine’s fault this happened.”

“Are we going to eat dinner?” Asa asks. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, buddy.” I put my hands on his shoulder. “We are going to eat dinner, and I’m going to cook it.”

“Yes!” he cheers. “I’m going back to the tree house, so I don’t have to help.” He rushes off to the backyard, and I look at Finley.

“Did you teach him that?”

“Please, I wish I were that clever. I would have done it before he did,” she retorts.

With her hair up on top of her head, her neck is exposed, and my hand itches to hold her and feel her pulse with my thumb.

“I’ll help you cook dinner if you tell me what to do,” she says. “Since I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Finley,” I say softly. “If anything, I’m the one who owes you an apology.”

“Yeah, you do.” She crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up, the lace of her bra peeking out.

“I’m glad you’re willing to talk to me again.” I really want to kiss her right now, something I know has to be the stupidest thing I could do. “I admit I went a little too far yesterday.”