Pretty Girls
Page 18
Nora walked in, stepping around stacks of cardboard boxes.
What was the emergency all about? Had her dishwasher malfunctioned and leaked water into this unit?
She walked in further, listening for where the woman had gone. The place had a gorgeous view, and the light was just streaming in like heaven.
Nora turned to her right and saw a sledgehammer on the floor, amidst a pile of debris. Above the sledgehammer was a white wall, nondescript except for the hole that had been smashed through the drywall. A hole. A hole through which Nora could see her own apartment, and the sofa she enjoyed naps on.
Something rustled behind her, and she wheeled around to see someone—not an old woman at all, but Aaron Edward, grinning like he was about to explode with glee.
“Aaron! What are you doing here? I'm coming to Eugene tonight.” She glanced around, confused. “Did you see the note on my door and… ”
He was still grinning.
“No, you didn't!” She shoved him back by hitting his shoulders. “Did you rent this place?”
He clutched his arms over his chest. “Ow, don't beat me up! I'm just a little old lady!”
She pushed him again, smiling to match his grin. “Tell me what's going on!”
“Isn't it obvious?”
“It is, and yet it isn't! When did you rent this place?”
“I didn't rent this place. I bought it. You're always talking about how much you love this place, so I decided to make an investment.”
She ran to the hole in the wall and peered through it. “Are you going to spy on me through this hole?”
“No, I'll knock out this whole wall and join the two units. The kitchens are already next to each others, so we'll turn them into one big kitchen.” He turned to the windows. “The light really is good in here.”
She turned back to his smug face again and gave him another playful shove. “My landlord probably won't approve of that, but I suppose we could put an interior door in, with permission.”
“Let's see,” he said, pulling his phone from his back pocket. He was wearing the leather pants, and looking more like a sexy rock star than ever. “Hello, may I speak to Nora's landlord?” He switched the phone to his other ear and made his high-pitched old lady voice. “Hello, but I'm not the landlord anymore. I sold the loft to a nice young man named Aaron Edward. I understand he sold the rights to some songs he wrote and came into some money.”
As he put the phone back into his pocket, Nora jumped at him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissing up and down both cheeks and all over his mouth.
Between kisses, she said, “Congratulations, I'm so happy for you.”
“I'm happy for us,” he said. “I want to share everything with you. You wouldn't believe how painful it was for me to keep this from you. I don't ever want to keep anything from you again.”
“Especially not good news,” she said, shaking her head.
“I have something to show you,” he said. “It's over in your apartment, though. I mean, on your side. Any idea how we can get there?”
She glanced to the loft's door, then back to the hole in the wall, and said, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”
“It's not a supporting wall, and I already got permission to take it out.”
She picked up the sledgehammer, which was even heavier than it looked. With a grunt and a swing, Nora put a small dent in the drywall.
Aaron said, “Where's my tough girl?”
“Hang on, hang on. I'm just getting warmed up.” She got a better grip on the sledgehammer and took another swing, taking out a chunk of wall and sending it through to her formerly-clean kitchen floor on her side.
Aaron offered to take over with the sledgehammer, but she was having way too much fun, and kept swinging until there was a space big enough for them to get to the other side.
Warm and breathing heavy from the exertion, she squeezed between the wood joists with a giggle.
Aaron was right behind her, muttering about leather pants not being appropriate for construction.
The first thing Nora noticed was the painting on her side that had been knocked to the floor. She picked it up, relieved it was undamaged.
Aaron sat on the sofa and looked up at her expectantly.
She said, “What?”
He tightened his lips and glanced down at the coffee table, at a small box, the exact size and shape of a ring box.
She took a seat next to him and drew a deep breath.
Both of them were silent as she reached for it.
Aaron turned to her and put his hand over hers before she opened the lid.
“Don't freak out,” he said.
“I just smashed my way through a wall. I think we're a few degrees beyond freaking out.”
“What I mean is… Nora, you mean everything to me. You know I write songs, and some of them are love songs, but I don't know how I was able to write them before now, because how could I have possibly known what love was?”
“Yet you sold those fake-love songs for big money.”
He grinned. “I guess I knew just enough, and I thought about you, to inspire me. Even before I came back to Oregon, I thought about you all the time, and your beautiful eyes, and your amazing voice, and your sweet spirit.” He reached up and tugged on one of her curls. “I love you. I love you so much, I could write a thousand songs, and I'll never run out of ways to express how much I love you.”
Nora kissed him, hoping the kissing would stop her from crying, but it didn't help. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
He cupped her hands in his, around the ring box. “What's wrong?”
“I don't know.” She leaned sideways to dry her cheeks on the shoulders of his T-shirt. “Nothing's wrong. These are happy tears. I love you, too. I guess I'm afraid of what's in this box.”
“It's not an apartment key, if that's what you're worried about.”
She laughed. “That's good, since I don't need one, now that we have the hole.”
“You sure showed that wall who was boss. Now open the box.”
She swallowed down the lump in her throat and blinked away the tears blurring her vision.
Aaron shifted off the couch, onto one knee, and helped get the box open.
Inside was a right with a star-shaped cluster of sparkling diamonds.
“That's for my radio star,” he said. “Nora Scott, will you marry me?”
She sniffed, catching her breath, aware of the seconds ticking by with no sounds. If she were on the air, this would be called dead air, and it would be a bad thing.
In real life, however, as she prepared to say yes to the love of her life, it was the most beautiful silence she'd ever heard.
This ebook was originally released in 2012 as "Pretty Girls Don't Cry" under the pen name Dalya Moon. To see my other ebooks, mostly family-friendly, from Middle-Grade (ages 10+) to Young Adult (ages 13+), visit www.dalyamoon.com. The Dalya Moon books do not contain any links or references to Mimi Strong or Orly Press within the ebooks or back matter.
Dalya and Mimi are the same person (hello!), and she writes her books for adults only under the name Mimi Strong.
Mimi Strong
Visit me at my personal website, www.mimistrong.com, or click the links below.
Lexie's First Time (Billionaire Prequel) - short story
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15 Six Months Later