Once the sun set, the mosquitoes began swarming. But by then it seemed a shame to go home too early, so Mom and I said good night to Gus and went inside to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls. Which, yes, I’ve seen half a dozen times, but if you’re not familiar with it, it’s about a single mom in a quirky little town raising a teenaged daughter she’d had out of wedlock when she was just a teenager herself, and it’s cute and smart and funny, and since it originally aired when I was, like, twelve years old, it’s always been our show. I bought Mom the first season on DVD with my first official paycheck.

Of course, one episode turned into two, then three, before I finally made it home to find an indignant Mogwai demanding that I refill his bowl.

“That’s all there is,” I told him, emptying the dregs of a bag of cat food. He flicked one notched ear in my direction. “Hey, it’s not my fault if you struck out today and were forced to survive on kibble alone, mighty hunter.”

Mogwai lifted his head from his dish long enough to give me a look of disdain.

“I’ll go to the store in the morning,” I promised.

Lying alone in bed, I let myself relive the memory of waking up this morning in Sinclair’s bed with his arm over me, trying to decide how I felt about it. Short answer: I felt good.

So as I drifted off to sleep, I resolved that tomorrow I’d do something nice and distinctly girlfriend-like for him. Cookies. Yeah, cookies. He didn’t know it yet, but I knew my way around the kitchen, too. I’d bake cookies for Sinclair.

It was a good idea, anyway.

The morning started out well enough. Since it was Sunday, I was technically off duty. I woke up in time to make a run to the grocery store, stocking up on cat food and baking supplies before the after-church hordes descended.

By noon, I had my wet and dry ingredients whisked, sifted, and separated and the late, great Katie Webster blasting some Swamp Boogie Queen blues on the stereo. My trusty electric hand mixer was plugged in and ready to go when my phone rang. It was a local number, but not one I’d programmed into the phone.

I lowered the volume on Katie. “Hello, you’ve reached Daisy Johanssen.”

There was a lot of noise in the background on the other end, too. “Hi? This is Mark Brennan at Bazooka Joe’s. You asked me to call?”

My mind was a blank. “I did?”

“If those kids came back?”

Oh, crap. Right. I shifted my phone to a better angle. “The kids running the shell game? They’re back?”

“Yeah, right here down on the dock,” he said. “Got a pretty big crowd, too.”