How to Score Read Online Free PDF Page B

laundry here, the answer’s no to that, too.”
    Chloe shook her head. “I’m serious.”
    “I am, too.”
    “You are not. You’re too nice for your own good.” The popcorn popped fast and furiously inside the microwave. “Not to change the subject, but can I borrow your car tomorrow? I need to put mine in the shop.”
    “Okay.” Sammi moved to the sink and washed her hands. “What’s wrong with it this time?”
    “Ah-hah!” Chloe pointed the clothes hanger at her like a DA pointing out the criminal in a courtroom drama. “Gotcha!”
    “What?”
    “You didn’t tell me no. How were you going to get to work if I had your car?”
    “I—I guess I figured you’d give me a ride.” Sammi dried her hands on a kitchen towel.
    “What if I wouldn’t?”
    Narrowing her eyes, Sammi put her hands on her hips. “Why wouldn’t you?”
    “Maybe I had to go in the other direction.”
    “Well, then, I would have called a friend.” Only she didn’t yet really know anyone in Tulsa besides the people she worked with—and since she was the supervisor of everyone at the museum except Ms. Arnette, she wouldn’t have felt right asking them to do her a personal favor. “Or I would have taken a cab. I would have managed.”
    “See there? You would have complicated your life because you didn’t stop and think about the consequences to yourself before you said yes.” Chloe shook her head. “You need to stop letting people take advantage of you.”
    “So you’re admitting you take advantage of me?”
    “I’m your sister. I’m supposed to.” Chloe slid her jeans onto Sammi’s good wooden hanger. “I’m talking about people like that old crone you work with.”
    “Ms. Arnette isn’t a crone, and she isn’t taking advantage of me, exactly.”
    Chloe blew out a derisive snort. “Let’s review the situation, shall we?” She held out her hand and started ticking things off on her fingers. “She resents your very presence, she refuses to step down, and she treats you like a grunt instead of an equal. She tries to keep you from attending board meetings, she shoots down your ideas, she finds fault with everything you do, and she orders you around.”
    It was true. But Sammi sympathized with the older woman’s plight. Ms. Arnette had suffered a heart attack six months before her planned retirement. Thinking that she wouldn’t return, the museum’s board of directors had hired Sammi to replace her. After she recovered, however, Ms. Arnette decided not to retire—so she and Sammi were both trying to do the same job. “It’s a tough situation for her, as well.”
    “And then there’s the matter of your landlord,” Chloe continued.
    Okay, Mr. Landry was a problem. Sammi had fallen in love with the little art deco house she was renting from him the moment she’d seen it. She’d researched the property and learned that it had been built by a famous architect in the 1930s—an architect that her great-grandfather had worked for, which meant that her great-grandfather had possibly done the masonry on this very house. She desperately wanted to buy it, but Mr. Landry refused to make the repairs the mortgage company required.
    Sammi refused to give up hope. “I asked him to come over this evening,” she told Chloe. “I’ve come up with an owner-financing agreement that might allow me to buy the place.”
    “Fat chance of getting him to agree to that.” Chloe folded another T-shirt. “You can’t even talk him into renewing your lease.”
    Unfortunately, Chloe was right. Sammi was living there as a month-to-month tenant, which meant her landlord had no obligation to fix anything that broke and could evict her with just thirty days’ notice.
    Sammi scowled as she pulled the bag of popcorn from the microwave. “Not that I’m ungrateful or anything, Chloe, but pointing out everything that’s wrong with my life is not helpful.”
    “I’m not finished. I haven’t even started on your other issue,” Chloe