She jumps off the table, scattering mail all over the floor as I confiscate the treat. An envelope opens and a pile of twenty dollar bills flutters across the tile floor. I don’t have time to manage the sudden money storm because Francesca is going after another marshmallow.

“Is everything okay over there? Did she get into something she shouldn’t have?”

“It’s fine! I just dropped a couple of marshmallows on the floor when I was unpacking groceries.” I scoop up the marshmallow bombs before Francesca can get her paws on another one. They’re a little goopy, as if she’s tried to taste them all. I dump them in the garbage so she can’t get to them. I carry a slightly disgruntled Francesca over to the phone, wiping marshmallow bits off her whiskers on the way.

“Here we are!” I pick the phone up while awkwardly trying to hold a squirming Francesca. She’s not having it, though. She wants to explore the grocery bags I’ve yet to unpack.

“Let me set this up better.” I rearrange the phone on a bunch of bananas so I don’t have to hold it and reclaim Francesca. “Say hi to Daddy!” I wave her little paw at him and mumble a high pitched. “Hi, Daddy.”

The smile that breaks across Bancroft’s face could light all the panties in the world on fire.

“Is she making mischief on you?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I figured. How’s Tiny?”

“She’s good. Ate a big fat cricket yesterday for dinner and she’s been chilling out ever since.”

Bancroft laughs. It’s probably one of my favorite sounds ever. “What about you? How are you?”

“I’m good.” I glance at the bills scattered over the floor. Now that I’m not so discombobulated and marshmallows aren’t exploding in the microwave, and slutty Brittany isn’t whining into his answering machine, I can see that it’s not just twenties. There are fifties and hundreds on the floor as well. Who sends that much cash in the mail? “So . . . I have a question for you.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows rise. “What kind of question?”

“Not a dirty one, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Mmm. That’s unfortunate. Is everything okay?”

“I think so, but I was moving the mail around and there’s a pile of cash on the floor. Can you explain that?”

He frowns. “A pile of cash?”

“Yeah. Francesca knocked the mail on the floor and all of a sudden it was raining large bills. I thought you might want to know, just in case some crazy drug dealer shows up here looking for his brick or what have you.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure.” I hold the phone over the pile of mail and money.

“Can you find the envelope it fell out of?”

“Give me a second.” I prop the phone against the answering machine, drop to the floor, and gather the letters and cash. All the envelopes are sealed, apart from one, which has my name and #2 scrawled on it in what looks like Bancroft’s writing. It’s not sealed, and there are a few lingering twenties still inside. I hold it up so he can see it. “Why does this have my name on it?”

Bancroft’s brow furrows. I don’t know how a brow furrow can be so sexy, but it really is. “Shit. Because I left it for you. It was in the notes from the morning I flew out.”

It takes me a moment to understand what he’s referring to. “You mean your hieroglyphics?”

“My writing really isn’t that bad.”

“That’s debatable. I still don’t understand why you left me another envelope of cash, there was already too much in the first one.” I filter the bills out from the mail. There are a lot of them.

“It seemed better than a check.”

“A check for what?” I sort them by denomination. I can’t count and listen at the same time.

“For taking care of Francesca and Tiny. It’s the weekly stipend we agreed upon.”

I pause to meet his two-dimensional gaze. I have the urge to mock him when he uses words like stipend and phrases like agreed upon. “But the first envelope you left already had double the amount we agreed upon for the entire time I’m here.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Yes, it did.”

“There was two thousand dollars in there,” I argue.

“Exactly. Two thousand a week for five weeks.”

“Two thousand a week? For taking care of your pets? That’s insane. I thought you meant two hundred.”

Bancroft’s expression is intense as he adjusts his tie. His gaze shifts away and then back again. “It’s not insane, it’s reasonable. You’re taking care of the things I love while I can’t, so I, in turn, will take care of you.”

All the sensitive parts of my body feel like they’re being stroked by his words. Normally the whole I’ll take care of you line would get my back up, but the way he frames it makes it sound sexy instead of douchey.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yes I do. And I still owe you for the last two weeks. If you give me your bank account number I can wire more.”

“That’s unnecessary. More is unnecessary. This is already too much.” I could actually make a real dent in my credit card debt with this, if I planned to take it, but I don’t. The first two-thousand is more than enough.

“How have you been surviving if you don’t have an income, Ruby? Please tell me you didn’t stick to the two hundred dollars a week.”

“I didn’t have to pay for groceries, so it was totally manageable, and you left the first envelope, remember?”

“Did you use it though?”

“Some of it.” I focus on unpacking the groceries so I don’t have to look at him. This conversation makes me uncomfortable for reasons I don’t quite understand.

Bancroft huffs. “Look at the money like a salary.”

“Two thousand dollars a week for pet care is not a reasonable salary.” That Bancroft doesn’t even bat an eyelid at parting with two thousand a week reminds me of how vastly different our financial situations are. The minimum scale on Broadway isn’t even that high.

“I disagree.”

“You’re welcome to your opinion, however wrong it may be.”

“Ruby.”