The Love Coupon

by Ainslie Paton

  Flick put her hand out to shake Derelie’s. “Nice to meet you, Derelie. You give good meme. Jack helped me get a new job, my absolute ‘would’ve given a leg and definitely a kidney for’ job, and I get to keep both.”

  Derelie smiled, but it was more at Jack. Flick turned to still-looming, disapproving Tom O’Connell. “You both know Tom? I might’ve taken out Tom’s ribs in my haste to get to you.”

  And that was being generous to the Great Wall of Tom, who’d nearly knocked her into outer Mongolia.

  “Tom,” said Haley, “been a while.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tom,” said Derelie, thrusting her hand at him. “Who do you write for?”

  “He’s a flack, a hot shot with Rendel PR. He’s part of the furniture there,” Flick said.

  Oh, did the temperature plummet? Yes, it dropped about ten degrees. Brrr.

  “Did you really just answer for me?” said Tom. The big suit had a way of making affronted sound like a good spanking. Well, bring it, dude, and next time look down from the mountain and watch where you’re going.

  She looked at Tom full-on for the first time. Pissed off with a headwind. Shoving the coupon at him probably didn’t help. “You looked stunned. I wasn’t sure you had words in you.”

  “You do know it’s incredibly annoying to answer for someone.”

  “I do. Men do it to me all the time. But apologies for the elbow in those very solid abs.”

  “Ah.” Derelie took back the hand Tom hadn’t reached for, making him scramble to do so. She gestured past them. “I’m going to excuse myself and go talk to my old boss, Shona.”

  Derelie took a step away and Jack caught her hand. A solitary moment stretched into eternity as they gazed at each other. There might as well not have been a single person angling for a favor, sweating on an ill-advised sexual dalliance or thick-headedly aggrandizing themselves in the room, before Jack let go and Derelie moved away.

  Flick sighed. They weren’t a stupid romance meme, they were the real deal. How incredibly rare and wonderful.

  “You got the job,” Jack said, voice lowered. His eyes were still on Derelie somewhere over Flick’s shoulder.

  She met his tone. She wasn’t ready for this to be common knowledge yet, but she trusted neither Jack nor Tom, who was still hanging in there, would cause her any trouble. “I’m moving to Washington. There’s just resigning and a pesky three-month notice period to work through, and then I’m off.”

  Jack’s eyes bounced back to hers. “Well done. Nothing I did got you that job. I only told them you didn’t have two heads and you’d never sold state secrets and I thought you were trustworthy. Finding accommodation in Washington might be interesting.”

  “Finding it here is proving equally as challenging. You don’t happen to know anyone who needs a temporary housemate, do you?” There couldn’t be too many people left in the room who didn’t know she was looking for a room. She’d made it tonight’s priority to find one. It was the one bug in her life. Well, that, the fact her family thought of her as a bank, and not ever having anyone look at her like Jack had looked at Derelie.

  She switched her gaze from Jack to Tom, who exuded frostbite. Why was he still here when there were happy endings at Club Xquisite? “My lease is up. I can’t renew short-term. I’m shipping my stuff ahead into storage. I just need a bed and a bathroom for three months.”

  “You could come bunk with me, but Derelie and I only have the one bedroom, and Martha and Ernest haven’t sorted out the cat-dog roommate divide yet,” Jack said.

  Jack Haley had pets. She’d known him professionally for years, but that personal detail was so amazing she nearly missed Tom saying a bald “No.”

  But hold up. Tom O’Connell shared with Josh Lam, and Josh Lam had shipped out to Beijing. Hacks-and-flacks mixers had their benefits. Everyone knew about Josh’s promotion, about Tom being next in line to take over Rendel’s Chicago office.

  “But didn’t Josh go to Beijing?”

  “Yes, he did,” Tom said. “No, you can’t.”

  Did she want to push this, to say it out loud? She had a week to find somewhere to live or she’d need to pay a hideous amount of money for an extended-stay apartment or take up professional-league couch surfing with Airbnb. She was going to her dream job for less salary in a more expensive city where she didn’t know anyone. “So you might have a room?”

  “No.”

  Interesting. He wouldn’t look at her. Tom wasn’t a great dissembler and he didn’t like being put on the spot. He stood stiffly, and since he was made of iron bars or granite boulders he presented a challenge. He’d rather be anywhere else but in this conversation, but he wouldn’t walk away while Jack was here.

  She really needed someone to have a room. Anyone. Any room. “You rented it already?”

  “I don’t plan to rent it.”

  “But plans can change, right?”

  “Not mine.”

  “Ah, come on, Tom, colleague in temporary housing distress,” said Jack. “She’s a lobbyist, you’re a flack. You’re not in a competitive situation. Let the woman rent your room.”

  “I can be very quiet,” Flick added.

  Both men laughed so robustly, the room went still for a second. She shushed them. “I can. I am multidimensional. I can chameleon-shift with the best of the lizards. You wouldn’t even know I was there, Tom.”

  “You, Flick Dalgetty, are your own worst press,” Tom said. “That is the fakest news I’ve ever heard. You couldn’t blend in with a riot.”

  She ignored the insult. She could tolerate unfun boulder-built Tom O’Connell, because she’d soon have a new career in a new city. “I’ll hardly ever be there. I won’t have friends over. I won’t take up much space. I’ll pay the total up front, in advance. And I’ve got a plane ticket out of here and a start date at the new job, so it’s not like you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

  “I’m planning on living alone.”

  And rigid as a railroad track about that. “I see.”

  “Come on, Tom. Do a colleague a solid,” said Jack, with a backslap that made Tom shift uncomfortably. “Flick, good luck, stay in touch. I’m done with social experiments. I’m going to find my girl and get out of here.”

  They both watched Jack go. “I wanted a word with him,” Tom said, at the same time as Flick said, “I’d be grateful if you’d consider renting your room to me.”

  “No.”

  No doubt about his intention there. “You really mean yes, but you need to think about it.”

  “I really mean no, and I don’t need to think about it.”

  “But you’re thinking about it.”

  “I came over to pitch Haley a story and you scared him off.”

  “No one scares Jack Haley off.”

  Tom grunted. “I believe you could do it.”

  “I’m taking that as a compliment.”

  “You would. You don’t take no, do you?”

  “Only when there’s zero alternative.” And the alternative to rigid stick-up-his-ass, boulder-that-wouldn’t-roll-over Tom O’Connell was money she didn’t want to spend or a back complaint she didn’t want to get. “Whatever your house rules are, I’ll follow them without a grunt of protest.”

  “Really.”

  She made a bring-it gesture.

  “No pets—”

  “I only have a small iguana named Ferdinand. He doesn’t eat much.”

  “No pets.”

  No sense of humor.

  “No inviting your strip-club friends over.”

  She groaned. He’d read the coupon and she deserved that.

  “No smoking, no drugs. No possessions left all over the place. No mess in the kitchen. No parties, no loud music, no coming and going all times of the day and night. No loud sex. No sex anywhere but in the bedroom. No sleepover partn
ers. Thinking about it, my preference is that you live like a cloistered nun who has taken a lifelong vow of silence.”

  “Why didn’t you cut to the chase and say no fun?”

  He looked at the ceiling. “Have I made myself clear?”

  Clear that he was a sad individual. She stuck out her hand and his eyes went down to her hand, then up to her face, hand, face, hand, face. “Perfectly. When can I move in?”

  He put his hands in his pants pockets. “You’re not moving in.”

  She waved hers between them. “Come on, Tom. You’ve got a spare room, I’ve got a small problem. Neither of us are secret bomb-building psychopaths. I don’t bite, scratch or smell bad. I don’t have a partner. I am a sexless desert. I have to give up all my friends anyway, because they’ll all promise to visit, but we know how that goes. I can get a head start on being lonely by living with you. I’ll eat out. I won’t mess up the living space. I’ll wear headphones and a blindfold at all times I’m on the premises. I’ll leave early and come home late, stay out on weekends. Once I resign next week, Cassidy Strauss is going to squeeze every ounce of blood they can get from me before I go. You’ll hardly know I’m there and I’ll be gone before you can wish you were nicer to me.”

  “You’re not moving in.”

  “I so am.”

  “Sheer force of will does not make it so.”

  But it goes a heck of a long way. Her motto in life; she’d had it inked on her ribs. “You just don’t realize how much you need me, Tom.”

  “I need you about as much as I need a discount lap dance or a pet iguana called Ferdinand.”

  She laughed. A lap dance might loosen him up. “Well, fancy that, you do have a sense of humor. There’s hope for you yet.”

  He gave a resigned sigh and looked at his feet. “Why do they call these mixers happy hours? No one here is happy.”

  “Jack and Derelie are.” They were headed for the door hand in hand. She waved and Jack stopped, spoke to Derelie and detoured toward them.

  Tom’s eyes were still on his mirror-shined shoes. “See, now you’ve gone and made it worse by reminding me you chased Jack away.”

  “What if I could bring him back so you could have your huddle? You’d rent me your room then?”

  He slapped his hands on his thighs and leaned toward her. “No chance.”

  “Good to see you two worked it out,” Jack said.

  Flick grinned at Tom, daring him to wriggle out of this now. “He’s my hero.”

  “Tom, you wanted a word earlier?” Jack said.

  And that’s how Flick saved her money and her back and Tom O’Connell got himself a private audience with Haley and a roommate he didn’t want.

  There ought to be a coupon for that.

  Chapter Three

  Flick Dalgetty played dirty pool. Of course, if Tom had spent more than half a second thinking about her, he’d have known that. He could’ve said no to her moving in. Instead he wrote his address on the back of the strip-club discount coupon and figured he’d grit his teeth and get through it because it was a fiscally sensible thing to do.

  But since Flick moved in nearly a week ago, he’d barely been aware of her presence, and they’d not had a single conversation that wasn’t about bank transfers, access codes, key passes and the best times to use the condo’s top-floor gym.

  And that was utterly mystifying.

  He’d resigned himself to coping with a wrecking ball and he’d found himself living with a ghost.

  Not that he was complaining. Flick had paid three months’ rent in advance. She didn’t appear to eat, or watch TV, or talk on the phone, or own anything that didn’t fit inside her bedroom. She’d arrived with two suitcases and an overnight bag stuffed with tech.

  He was only aware of her because he heard the front door open and close and water running in the bathroom. She left for work well before him and slipped home before him, her closed bedroom door signaling she’d retired for the night.

  It was fine. Great, even. He was too busy to spare any time puzzling over it. He could simply get on with his routine without interruptions.

  It was unexpected, eerie and unnatural.

  But so was naming an Alzheimer’s drug Improcog. It was a combination of two words, “improved” and “cognition,” and of the legally registerable names it had tested better than Cogimpro, Memcog, Memeffect and twelve other made-up words that made the short list.

  Musing about being ghosted was interrupted when Wren put a copy of the Courier on his desk, folded open to the story that’d come from the press briefing they’d held yesterday.

  “Long week,” she said, sitting opposite.

  “We kicked its ass.”

  “My brain has reached the glazed-over stage.”

  “We’re both bunking out early. Everything else can wait till Monday.” Which would make Monday crazy, but they both needed the break. Without it, mistakes would be made, and unfucking things took longer than doing them right the first time.

  “I heard ‘wait till Monday’ and I can’t quite process that. I’ve forgotten what I do when I’m not working or sleeping.”

  “You buy shoes.”

  Wren’s shoes today had heels that looked like Roman columns. For the press briefing, she’d worn shoes that were covered with a newsprint pattern. He wondered what kind of shoes Flick wore. Flippers, for all the attention he’d paid. He needed to pay more attention. Behind that motor mouth and the fuel-injected eyes there was a formidable opponent.

  “How is your roommate?”

  Speaking of which. “Suspect she wants to kill me in my sleep.”

  Wren laughed and segued that into a yawn. “Sounds positive.”

  “She’s quiet. Suspiciously stealthy.”

  “Maybe she’s not well.”

  Would he know if he was living with a person who was unwell? What did unwell sound like? He was never unwell and neither was Josh. Iron constitutions, both of them.

  “Maybe you intimidated her.”

  He made a sound of disbelief. “Not likely. We’re talking pro cat herder Flick Dalgetty.”

  “She certainly rounded you up.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a useful arrangement for us both.” She had stampeded, steamrolled, herded, corralled and roped him. He’d let her do it, a solution fallen in his lap, but he still resented it and was struggling to be gracious about it, which was redundant, because instead of crowing about her victory, she’d abandoned all signs of life. It was unnerving.

  “If you’re doing that broody, pissed-off and suffering-the-weight-of-the-world thing you do, you might’ve intimidated her.”

  “If I was doing it, she’s not been around to see it.”

  “Gold star for not denying you do broody, pissed-off and distinctly martyred.”

  “I prefer to think of it as thoughtful, with barely contained menace and the potential for decisive action rising.”

  “That’s the part when your hands go in your pockets.”

  “Yes, so I don’t accidentally throttle someone.”

  “And you’re worried about Flick strangling you in your sleep.”

  “She’s smart enough to know that’s the only way she’s going to get a jump on me.” Again.

  “Roommates made in heaven.” Wren rubbed the back of her neck. “I can’t think straight anymore. I could make the mistake of buying fugly shoes if I go shopping now. I’m going home to wander around aimlessly until I can sleep the entire weekend.”

  Different plan, same intention. Instead of the aimless wandering, Tom was going to cook fried chicken and open a bottle of wine, crash in his bunk before midnight and spend Saturday hiking. In other words, not think about Alzheimer’s drugs or political maneuvering for the whole weekend.

  “So go.” He had a few things to finish up.

  “I’m t
oo tired to move.”

  She did eventually, because watching him edit a report and answer a dozen emails was enough to put anyone to sleep.

  He shut down and left the office about the same time as everyone else was leaving, but that still put him about four hours ahead of his regular departure time for this week. A quick trip to the market, where it took too long to find what he needed, and he was home by six and had started preparing the chicken.

  There was no sign of Flick, her bedroom door slightly ajar.

  He changed into sweats and a long-sleeved Henley, pushed the sleeves up and opened a bottle of wine. He hit play on his Eclectic Classics Spotify list and got the opening guitar riff to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Made him want to go fling open the door to Flick’s room to check if she had really moved in and to see if she lived like the fairground before the cleanup crew arrived.

  He was about to plate up when the door burst open and banged closed. He stared at Flick. She stared at him. The song changed over.

  “Hi,” she said. She wore sneakers with a severe black suit, much like the ones Wren wore. Fitted skirt, tailored jacket. She pulled a gaudy red-and-purple scarf from around her neck, nothing like Wren would wear, and scrunched it in her hand.

  Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” started up. There was a line about trading heroes for ghosts in that song.

  “Hi.” He followed that up with the blazingly obvious “You’re home.”

  “You’re home. I’m just passing through.” She looked off toward her room and then back. “I smell fried chicken. You made fried chicken.”

  He’d made enough to eat now and to pack for lunch on the trail tomorrow. “I like to cook. It relaxes me.”

  “It smells amazing.”

  No denying that, or the expression on Flick’s face. Hunger.

  She flapped her scarf at him. “This is weird. And we can’t be weird. I resigned on Monday and things got tricky. I got a counteroffer and it was good. Flattering, but this job I’m going to is everything to me. But that’s why I’ve been, well, not here.” She flapped the scarf again and laughed. “Oh, your face. Don’t have a coronary, I’m still going to Washington, but I want to leave without scorching the earth behind me, so it was a difficult week.”