"Mmhmm. Does he make a habit of inviting himself indoors? Because I need to prepare myself for that."
"Not usually, no. I've only seen him in the yard. Sometimes he'll come sit on the deck. Months will go by without seeing him. Once it was almost a year."
"And you're sure it's the same cat?"
"I'm not sure about anything but Midge was convinced. She knew his markings. I think she left food for him on the back steps but then she kept getting raccoons hanging out on her porch. At least that's what she told me when I moved in here. That was the first thing she said to me. 'Don't feed the cat because he only sends his raccoon friends to eat.'"
Jasper drummed her fingers on the mug. "How old is this cat?"
"No one knows."
"No one knows?" she repeated, a twang of irritation in her voice.
There was definitely something wrong with me because I enjoyed the shit out of that. "He's been around since before I moved in five years ago. Midge mentioned seeing him on and off for years before that. She figured he liked hanging around here because this place hadn't been occupied for fifteen or twenty years so there were plenty of mice." I shifted to drop the knife into the basin of the sink. I didn't need Jasper grabbing that thing again. "Surprised you've never heard about him, seeing as you were so close with Midge. She had a ton of stories about that damn cat."
If Jasper was fazed by these comments, it didn't show. She grinned at the old barometer and tide chart stationed below the clock on the wall opposite the kitchen. "What a curious bit of history. I get a house and an occasional cat."
"You're sticking around, then. You're not just visiting. You're here to stay."
Jasper's eyes brightened. "You seem very concerned about this."
"I'm not concerned. I'm making conversation, just like you," I replied with a wave toward our mugs. Mine was still miserably empty. "You're the one who invited yourself over."
"Which I did to acknowledge your help yesterday."
"Which you've done." I shoved my hands into my pockets. They were safer there. They wouldn't wring her lovely neck there. "Clearly there's something else you want."
She took a step forward, propped her hands on her hips. "I'm being neighborly. You should try it."
I matched her step. "And what the fuck did you think I was doing yesterday?"
A noise rattled in her throat, something strangled and hoarse. I loved that noise—and I had the privilege of hearing it in its purest form now that we were standing toe to toe. "You thought you were interrupting the commission of a crime."
"You had a fucking crowbar, Jasper." I folded my arms over my chest. "What was I supposed to do? Hand you a muffin basket?"
The gold in her eyes flashed. "A muffin is always preferrable to mansplaining."
We stared at each other for a long moment. A few strands of her hair brushed against my forearm. It was nothing, but those sensations still rippled over my skin and down my spine. And lower.
"Yeah, so, anyway, what is this?" I asked, tipping my chin toward the dish. "It's a lot of things but it's not banana bread."
"It certainly is," she snapped. "I mashed those bananas myself."
"And what else did you throw in with those bananas?"
"The usual things. Flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla. Stuff like that."
I gestured to the loaf's squat, dense appearance. "Some part of that went wrong."
"I don't know what went wrong," she replied. "I followed the recipe. The grocery stores are a nightmare, of course, but—"
"What do you mean, the grocery stores are a nightmare?"
"They're just impossible to find," she said, touching her fingers to her temples. "I swear, I drove in the same circle for an hour just to get to the store."
I peered at her. "Are you talking about the rotary?"
"The traffic circle," she said.
"The rotary."
"It's called a traffic circle. That's the name."
I shook my head. I wasn't arguing the New England dialect with a southerner this morning. "It took you an hour to exit?"
She lifted a shoulder. "Maybe not a full hour."
"But close enough?" When her only response was a blink, I continued, "And then what happened, Jasper?"
With a defiant shake of her head that was practiced only in its purity, she said, "I mean, I think I got the right ingredients. I haven't actually visited a grocery store in years. It's just so overwhelming without the list of items you usually buy right there in the app. Do I use bread flour or cake flour? I don't know. How am I supposed to know that? And all the different types of sugars, my word. How am I supposed to know the correct one for baking? Aren't most of them interchangeable? They didn't even have the brand of bread I prefer which was truly disappointing. All I can say is I really miss the stores where I used to shop."
"And where were those?"
Jasper turned a piercing glare toward me. "Mid-Atlantic."
"Right. The mid-Atlantic." I motioned for her to continue. "Then what happened? How did you commit this crime against bananas?"
"I had to bake it in the crockpot because the oven wasn't heating up but—"
"Let me stop you right there." I shook my head. "You baked it in a crockpot?"
"That's what I said."
"Crockpots aren't for baking."
"Crockpots are for everything," she replied. "Crockpots can cook anything and you're light on the imagination if you think otherwise."
I motioned to the loaf again. "That's a real nice argument but this begs to differ. You're sure about the flour? And the sugar? You're sure it wasn't spackle? I'm positive I tasted some spackle."
If my brother was here, he'd tell me I was being an ass.
He wouldn't be wrong.
She fisted her hands. "I was trying to thank you. It's a kind gesture, you know."
"Yeah, I caught that part. Just not sure if you're trying to kill me with your kindness."
Her cheeks were red now, almost comically so, and I swore I could hear her molars grinding together. I was really, really sick because I was enjoying the hell out of this.
"If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't do it with kindness."
I leaned a hip against the counter. When I crossed my arms over my chest, my knuckles brushed the front of her jacket. "How would you do it, then?"
She glanced down at where the back of my hand lingered against the denim. "That shouldn't concern you."
"Why not?"
She dropped a hand on my chest, saying, "Because I've thanked you for your help and fulfilled all expectations of courtesy, and now I'll live happily knowing I've done my part. I'll also live happily if our paths never cross again. Help me out with that, would you?"
After another pat to my chest, Jasper spun away from me and marched straight out of my house, the front door banging shut behind her.
Jasper spent the next seven days making it impossible to ignore her.