“Oh,” I say, “they’re extremely nonjudgmental.”
“That’s good,” he says and rolls over to reach for the water glass on the nightstand next to his side of the bed—after a workout like the one I’ve given him, hydrating is both necessary and advisable—only to find Owen, the orange tabby cat, perched there, watching him.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, startled, as Owen blinks at him. “We might as well get cameras in here and put on our own reality show.”
“I told you we could go to your place,” I say, holding out my index finger so Owen will move from the nightstand to the bed. An outstretched index finger is, as any cat person knows, irresistible to most cats, as they cannot help but move toward one to rub their face against it. Owen is no exception, and Cooper is able to reach the water glass as Owen leaps from the nightstand to the bed. “Then we wouldn’t have an audience.”
“No,” Cooper says after swallowing down half the contents of the glass. “I like your place better.”
He doesn’t need to explain. His place—one floor of the brownstone below mine—is bigger, but it’s also been Cooperized, with curtains that don’t close all the way (particularly in the bedroom), books and papers piled on nearly every surface, and at least five pairs of shoes left in the middle of the floor in every room because, as he explains, “that way I know I can find them.” I personally don’t understand why anyone needs to have seven bottles of nearly empty conditioner in the shower, and clearly Cooper doesn’t either since he spends nearly all his time on my floor, leaving it only to use his admittedly fantastic kitchen, his office, and his bedroom to change clothes. Even the animals prefer my place, except when we’re in the kitchen downstairs. My floor only has a kitchenette.
One thing for which I’ve been campaigning is a housekeeper, especially since Magda has a cousin who runs a cleaning service. Although Cooper is horrified at the idea—he grew up on the Cartwright compound, split between Westchester and a huge penthouse apartment in Manhattan, with a full-time staff of nannies, maids, cooks, and chauffeurs, and so as an adult is determined to do his own dishes and laundry—it’s a battle I’m equally determined to win. There’s no reason two busy working people—one of whom is also in school—shouldn’t pool their money to pay a third person who is in the business of cleaning homes to come to theirs to do so. It’s practically unpatriotic, as a matter of fact, for them not to do so, especially in this economy. We’re depriving someone of badly needed work.
I’ve almost got Cooper believing in this argument.
“So,” I say to him, now that we’re both feeling more relaxed and the cat has made a neat little ball of himself between us. Lucy, in her own doggie bed on the floor, is snoring softly. “I know you didn’t want to talk about it in front of Tom and Steven. But don’t you think in this particular case client-detective privilege should extend to me?”
Except for telling us that he’d taken the assignment his father had offered, Cooper had refused to elaborate further on what had happened in the offices of Cartwright Records Television. At the bar, he’d just ordered another beer, then wolfed down a plate of fish and chips, fried oysters, and half the contents of the basket of mozzarella sticks I’d ordered for the table. (Though mozzarella sticks are basically my favorite thing, I didn’t object too much. I had a pizza Margherita with which to console myself.)
“In this particular case, the client is going to be my sister-in-law,” I go on, “and working in my building. So I really think I should be let in on what’s going on.”
“Why do you think I took the case?” Cooper asks, lifting an arm so I can snuggle closer.
I’m perplexed. “Your dad offered you a million dollars?” I offer hopefully. With that kind of money, we could get weekly housekeeping, and also all the brownstone’s walls painted, get new window treatments, the windows cleaned—they need it badly—and re-do all the bathrooms, not to mention maybe put in a hot tub in the backyard.
“Not quite that much,” he says with a chuckle. “Although I did give my father a quote that’s triple my normal rate, and he didn’t even blink an eye. If I’m going to have to be spending all my time with Tania, I’m going to need to be amply compensated for it.”
“Yes,” I say, running a finger along his arm, all the way down to the complicated watch I’ve never seen him remove. “How much time exactly are you going to have to be spending with Tania?”
“Every minute she’s at Fischer Hall,” he says. “Once they’ve got her tucked into her Maybach and headed back up to Park Avenue, I’m off duty. That’s the deal I made with my dad. I’m only interested in protecting Tania during the hours her presence might be putting your life in jeopardy—though I didn’t tell him so, of course. They’ll have to find alternative security the rest of the time.”
“Wait.” I lift my head from his shoulder and stare into his face. “What? How is Tania’s presence putting my life in jeopardy? Or anyone’s? I thought that bullet that hit her bodyguard was random—”
His smile is grim. “If everyone still believes that shot was random, why the sudden move to film the show at New York College? Do you have any idea how much it must be costing CRT to move location from that resort, which they had to have paid millions to secure?”
Now I’m sitting up, holding my—admittedly way too expensive, but I did get them significantly marked down at T.J.Maxx—dark purple Calvin Klein sheets to my chest. Cooper’s chest is protected by a fine mat of dark hair. I’m not that wild about hairless chests—Jordan used to wax his in order to appear nonthreatening to his fans, primarily tween girls.
“They’re furnishing all the rooms,” I say, “and paying to have the cafeteria restaffed and set up over the next couple of days. That can’t be cheap.”
“Granted, the college is probably letting them have the space for nothing,” Cooper says. “The promotion for the school alone will be worth it—”
“If the show casts the school in a positive light,” I murmur, thinking about the horrible things Stephanie Brewer suggested, about how we could let the girls sneak out, chaper-oneless, into the city to create “drama.”