I assumed Mark planned to sleep on the couch, but I doubted even he knew where he'd end up. So I sat at his desk downstairs, paperwork cluttered around me and my laptop, and tried to forget Joshua. To lose myself in saving Adventura and Mark, because I couldn't save myself these days.
Maybe I didn't need to price out every single aspect of Mark's rental plan right this second—down to the cost for catering, including the gas it would take JJ to bring the food that, at some point, he'd agreed to provide—but the numbers soothed me. Digging my fingers back into the calculations, formatting spreadsheets, and mind lanes soothed my agitation.
“Seiko just texted me that she left,” Mark said as he stepped out of the bathroom, toweling his wild black hair. “She'll be here in forty-five minutes.”
I snuck a quick glance up, then froze. He'd forgotten to put a shirt on after his shower, and the half-naked view from the first moment that I met him lay back before my eyes. Only now I knew Mark better. For some reason, that made his thick, sculpted body even more beautiful.
With a hard swallow, I forced my gaze back to the table.
“Great,” I said, and managed to sound just this side of strangled. He riffled through a laundry basket on the couch, grabbed a shirt from it, and pulled it over his head. The ease of it was oddly intimate.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just running the numbers before she gets here. Did we already figure out the cost for housekeeping?”
“No cost.” He sauntered past me to the cupboard. “I'll do it.”
“Heaven help us all,” I muttered.
“I heard that. “
“Cleaning supplies cost money.” I chewed on the bottom of my pen. We were talking details now, and Mark tended to tune out when those came up. But I needed them. Details were the only certainty we had.
“Like ten dollars maybe?”
“Depends on how thorough you are,” I quipped back. “Water. Laundry. Cleaning supplies. Your time. That sort of thing all has a cost attached to it. If it were me, I'd figure it all the way out but . . .”
“We don't even have the official license yet.” He waved a spoon through the air. “I'm not worried about $10 cleaning fees yet. With my other HomeBnB's, don't we just have a general fund to figure this out with?”
A general fund? What in the doggone world did that mean?
“You pay a cleaning company,” I pointed out to the sound of running water behind me. I didn't dare look at him. My eye roll would be so great it would knock him over.
“Right.” The water turned off. “Well, we'll figure that out later. Seiko is a friend that's willing to pay to use our space, that's it. We can still move ahead without that detailed of a cost analysis.”
With a sigh, I pressed a hand to my forehead to hide my irritation. He wasn't entirely wrong, but it wasn't being smart either. Mark's ability to pay his bills was narrowing with every day that passed. A mere $50 could make a big difference. The details he hated so much mattered.
But how to make him see that?
I shook my head. Time to move onto the next hurdle. “Did she pay you cash or with an app or a check?” I asked.
He frowned. “Hadn't thought of that.”
Of course he hadn't.
“How long is she staying?” I tried next.
“Three days?”
Why was that a question? My blood felt like it was getting too warm. I forced myself to take a deep breath and calm down. I knew Mark didn't like the details, just as I knew this would be a hard aspect of working with him. Expecting him to change was just wasted effort, but didn't alter the fact that I wanted him to pay attention more. To care about the little things more, because he should.
“You're not sure how long she will be here?” I asked.
“Not officially, no. But three days sounds right.”
“How much did you tell her it cost per night?”
“I didn't.”
My eyes scrunched close. They'd cross permanently with my heightened vexation at this rate. How had he survived this long? Suddenly, I was catapulted back to our initial days working together, when I frantically tried to find a different accountant that would be a better fit, but felt so bad for him that I didn't have the heart to pawn him off.
Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to calm again.
“Mark, we need to know how long she plans to stay because we still have to find other people to book it, right?”
“Right.”
“So you didn't capture payment yet and we don't know how long she's staying?” I asked, poorly hiding the irritation in my voice. Now I had no way of getting an accurate accounting until Seiko arrived. Seemed pretty unprofessional to say, 'Hi, thanks for coming! Please give us your money for a previous undisclosed amount. Oh, how long will you be here?'
Mark didn't seem to notice. “No payment yet, but I'm not concerned. Seiko will pay.”
“And if she doesn't?”
Now he sounded tense. “She will.”
“That cannot happen going forward, Mark. We—”
A knock on the door interrupted me, and I glowered at his back as he crossed behind me to answer the door. Seiko's bright voice entered the room before her, and the melodic tint made it abundantly clear she was a musician. Mark wrapped her in a big warm hug with his thick arms and I lost all my patience then. Seiko would think of me as some psycho woman that couldn't stay in a room, but I had to get away.
While Mark greeted her, I ducked out the back door and headed toward the kitchen. One more second in that room with Mark and I would absolutely explode.
Justin stepped out of the kitchen door as I approached, the screen slamming shut behind him. Atticus trotted behind him, tongue lolling. I'd saved a cheese stick in my jacket pocket just for this moment. Atticus, the wise dog
