The Varlet and the Voyeur

by L.H. Cosway

  Hmm. . .

  He sounded nervous. And, now that I studied him, he looked nervous. Why was he nervous? His lips were tight, his jaw stiff. He was keeping some kind of secret because those were his tells.

  I folded my arms and narrowed my gaze. “Where do you want to take me?”

  He started the engine and pulled out of the parking space. “It’s not far,” he said, avoiding the question.

  “Will, tell me where you’re taking me.”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Yes, you do. You love them.”

  “Okay, that’s true. But I don’t like this surprise. You look nervous. You’re never nervous.”

  “I’m nervous sometimes.”

  “Will.”

  “Josey, please just trust me. It’ll take ten minutes and then everything will become clear.”

  It was the exasperated look on his face that shut me up. Ten minutes into the drive I started to think the worst, and then, suddenly, the scenery became familiar. Will pulled to a stop outside my parents’ house. Except, it wasn’t my parents’ house anymore. They’d moved out months ago into a cozy two-bedroom apartment after selling the house to some property developer. Whoever it was, they’d already done a lot of work on the place. There were new triple glazed windows installed and a fancy new front door.

  I looked at Will. “What are we doing here?”

  His gaze fell on me, so tender and full of love. “I thought you’d like to see our new place.”

  There was a vulnerability in him now, and I had to catch my breath. Our new place?

  No, he couldn’t have.

  Surely not.

  I tried to keep my voice steady and failed. “Will, did you b-buy my family’s house?”

  He nodded. “For us.”

  Tears sprang forth. I loved this house. It broke my heart when Mam and Dad told me they were putting it on the market. And Will had. . .he’d bought it for me. For us.

  It felt like too much.

  But then, we’d been together almost six months, and already I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t with me. It felt like he’d always been there, even though logically I knew he hadn’t. He just fit into my life so perfectly, and I in his.

  Will leaned closer to study me. “Are you crying?”

  “Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me before.”

  “Well, when you love someone, you’d do anything to make them happy.”

  “Like buy them houses?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Will, have you any idea how crazy this is? It’s so much money. Too much.”

  He caught my chin in his hand and looked deep into my eyes. “It’s our future. No amount of money is too much.”

  Our future.

  I was quiet for a moment, letting it all sink in. “I really do love this house. I’ve lived in it my whole life.”

  “And now it’s yours,” Will breathed. His eyes were big, absorbing all the emotions on my face like he was etching them into memory.

  I shook my head, flabbergasted, touched and completely blown away by this gesture. No, it was more than a gesture. It was a declaration. By buying this house, Will was saying something BIG. He was telling me that our lives were entwined now. What was his was mine, and what was mine was his.

  If he didn’t know me, this would just be any old house to him. But he did know me, loved me, and because it meant something to me it, in turn, meant something to him.

  Turning away from him, I looked back at the house. “You’ve been keeping this a secret all this time. How did I not know?”

  “You were studying, and it’s the off-season. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly been busy,” I said, and sniffed, trying not to cry and failing. I wiped at my tears with the backs of my hands. I was overcome.

  “Okay, I guess you better show me what you’ve done with place, but be warned, if you screwed it up, we’re over,” I teased, my voice watery.

  Will smiled and led me out of the car. “I think you’ll be pleased.”

  He was right. I was pleased. He’d done an amazing job. All the walls had been stripped of old wallpaper and repainted, the rickety staircase had been replaced with a new, modern design, and the entire kitchen had been remodeled. The builders knocked through the back wall to create a giant window looking out into the back garden, giving the effect that there was no gap between modernity and nature.

  I was stunned by the sheer extent of the work in so short a time. It still wasn’t finished, but what had been achieved was incredible. I barely recognized the place, and yet, it felt like home. It had that feeling of comfort, like slipping into an old pair of well-worn, soft cotton pajamas after a long day at work.

  “I wanted to wait for your input on the furniture,” Will said, coming to stand next to me. “But overall, what do you think?” Again, he looked unsure. I felt like he had more to say, but was holding back.

  I exhaled heavily, came to stand in front of him, and wrapped my arms around his big shoulders. “I think it’s amazing. You’re amazing. And the fact that you did all this for us? I don’t deserve you.”

  “Yes, you do. We deserve each other. We’ve earned it.”

  That got a chuckle out of me. “Go us. Wosey for the win!”

  Will’s brows drew together, a smile tugging at his lips. “Wosey?”

  “It’s our couple name. Will and Josey makes Wosey. I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to reveal it.”

  His deep, throaty laugh gave me a warm feeling in my belly. “I fucking love you.”

  I went up on my tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss on his lips. “And I love you.”

  He brought his mouth to my ear and whispered, “What do you think about getting married?”

  I blinked, sure I’d misheard, but no, Will gazed down at me like he’d just casually suggested we should have beans on toast for tea. Like asking me to marry him was the most natural thing in the world. I opened my mouth, then closed it. My throat ran dry.

  “What did you just say?”

  Will tugged my arms from around his shoulders and stepped back. “You once said you didn’t think you’d ever get married.”

  I blinked at him, trying to recall the conversation, and remembering our walk in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. “Yes, I guess I did.”

  He nodded, his eyes solemn and serious. “I want you to know, this is your house. I bought it for you. No matter what happens, it belongs to you. I understand if you don’t ever want to get married, and I’ll accept that.” He paused here to swallow, a hint of sadness and longing shading his expression. “I’ll always want to be with you, regardless of whether I’m your husband, or not.”

  New tears pricked my eyes and I captured his face with my hands. “Oh, Will. I love you. And whether or not we get married—which I am not against, for the record—and whether you’d actually bought this house or not, I’ll always want to be with you, too.”

  Will’s gorgeous brown eyes seemed to grow larger as I spoke, and they bounced between mine. “In that case. . .”

  He lowered to one knee. My heart somersaulted, my belly flipflopped, and my lungs filled up with too much air. He reached around to his back pocket, pulled out a small, velvet box, and opened it up to reveal a white gold ring sparkling with the most beautiful diamond.

  What the…

  WHAT?

  First the house, and now this. Was he trying to kill me?

  And great, now I was crying again. Over the last few months, I’d imagined where our lives would lead, wondered and hoped, but there was always one constant: Will at my side.

  I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, I had no doubt.

  His eyes met mine, his full of love and affection, mine full of love and tears.

  “I hope those are happy tears,” he said as he held out the ring.

  I swallowed back the lump of emotion in my throat. �
�They are.”

  As soon as I said it, his face transformed. He beamed pure joy at me. It hit me square in the chest as he took my hand in his. “Josey Kavanagh, will you marry me?”

  I blinked back more tears, cleared my throat, and just about managed to find my voice. “William Moore, abso-fucking-lutely.”

  End.

  About the Authors

  L.H. Cosway has a BA in English Literature and Greek and Roman Civilisation, and an MA in Postcolonial Literature. She lives in Dublin city. Her inspiration to write comes from music. Her favourite things in life include writing stories, vintage clothing, dark cabaret music, food, musical comedy, and of course, books. She thinks that imperfect people are the most interesting kind. They tell the best stories.

  * * *

  Penny Reid lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband, three kids, and an inordinate amount of yarn. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she just writes books.

  * * *

  Come find L.H. Cosway-

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LHCosway

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/LHCosway

  Mailing List: http://www.lhcoswayauthor.com/p/mailing-list.html

  Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lhcosway13/

  Website: www.lhcoswayauthor.com

  Come find Penny-

  Mailing list signup: http://pennyreid.ninja/newsletter/ (get exclusive stories, sneak peeks, and pictures of cats knitting hats)

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PennyReidWriter

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reidromance/

  Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/ReidRomance

  Email: pennreid@gmail.com …hey, you! Email me ;-)

  Blog: http://pennyreid.ninja

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReidRomance

  Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/people/ReidRomance (if you crochet or knit…!)

  Please, write a review!

  If you liked this book (and, more importantly perhaps, if you didn’t like it) please take a moment to post a review someplace ( Goodreads, your blog, on a bathroom stall wall, in a letter to your mother, etc.). This helps society more than you know when you make your voice heard; reviews force us to move towards a true meritocracy.

  Read on for:

  Sneak Peek: Fauxmance, Showmance #2 (Coming August 2018)

  L.H. Cosway’s Booklist (current and planned publications)

  Sneak Peek: Dr. Strange Beard, Winston Brothers #5 (Coming July 2018)

  Penny Reid’s Booklist (current and planned publications)

  Sneak Peek: Fauxmance, Showmance #2

  By: L.H. Cosway

  One

  Julian

  I was obsessed with the woman from the coffee shop.

  She always sat at the same table, and her stories were everything.

  Each Tuesday at ten-thirty in the morning, she’d meet her friend with some new piece of scandal or adventure to tell. I normally arrived early, ordered my latte and sat down to wait for the latest episode of Elodie’s fraught and eventful love life.

  On this particular Tuesday, I watched her walk into the Polka Dot Café with a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. She ordered a drink, then took a seat at the table behind mine where her friend was waiting. Elodie was medium height, with long, silky red hair and magnetic green eyes. Her make-up was immaculate; red lips, smoky eyes, and her clothes were edgy and sexy. She was also never without a pair of sky-high heels.

  Her friend, whose name was Suze, was Asian and wore funky designer from head to toe. Think Moschino with a touch of Vivienne Westwood. Visually, she was more striking than Elodie, but she didn’t have her friend’s adventurous soul, her joie de vivre.

  I feigned preoccupation with my phone while they exchanged greetings.

  “Gosh, my Kenneth just won’t stop going on about getting me a boob job,” Suze complained. She was also a source of entertaining anecdotes, though she had nothing on Elodie.

  Elodie made a face. “Your boobs are fine. What does he want you to end up like? A blow-up doll?”

  Suze chuckled. “Probably. Most men prefer silence and submission, right?”

  “I’m not so sure about that. The guy I was out with on Saturday definitely enjoyed my vocalisations.”

  A cackle from Suze. “Oh, do tell! How did you meet this one?”

  Elodie took a sip of her coffee and made a face. I’d adjusted my seat so that I could watch her covertly from the corner of my eye. “On Tinder. He invited me for dinner at the Ivy and then we decided to hell with it and booked a hotel room.”

  “I swear you invented the philosophy of YOLO,” Suze said with envy.

  “I just want to enjoy myself while I’m young.”

  “So, are you going to see him again?”

  “Hmmm, maybe. He said he manages a gym. If things go well I could get a free membership.”

  “You’re too much,” Suze tittered.

  “Anyway,” Elodie continued. “He had nothing on the guy I went to dinner with last Thursday. He was a pilot, even showed up wearing his uniform. I just about died and went to heaven.”

  “Seriously? How do you find all these amazing men?”

  Elodie grinned. “I won’t lie, it’s a skill.”

  “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t married so that we could go out together and paint the town red every night.”

  “Hey! It’s more like every second night,” she chided playfully, and I smirked around a sip of coffee. She was a woman after my own heart and I loved it.

  Suze sighed. “Ugh, I’m so jealous. What happened with the pilot?”

  “He was sort of kinky, wanted to tie me up.”

  Suze slammed her hand down on the table. “It just keeps getting better and better.”

  “And get this, he brought a pair of handcuffs. Fur lined to avoid chafing, of course.” She raised a saucy brow.

  “Of course,” Suze giggled.

  “It was all going great until we started doing the deed and he made these loud, high pitched sex noises. I was like, okay, this is weird. But you know, he was good in bed, so I gave him a pass on the girly moans.”

  Suze laughed so hard she almost spit out her coffee. “Oh, man. That’s too funny. You should write a newspaper column. More people need to hear these stories.”

  There was a pause before Elodie replied, “Now where would I find the time for that? I’m too busy going out and enjoying myself.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Suze agreed.

  I listened to the rest of the Elodie’s account of her night with the pilot and wondered if I should introduce myself someday. After all, I felt like I knew them both better than some of my real-life friends at this stage, such was the extent of my eavesdropping. I could be the third member of their group. Just one of the girls. Strangely, I’d always gotten along better with women than with men.

  My bestie, Rose, could attest to that.

  One of my few male friends, David, says it’s because I’m a lesbian trapped in a straight man’s body. I like to talk to women about their feelings and I also like to have sex with them. I happen to think that simply makes me an evolved modern gentleman rather than a lesbian, but what do I know?

  David, aka, David Jonathan, was a pop star in the eighties. He achieved a grand total of three Top Ten singles and a platinum record before fading into obscurity. Now he worked as a wedding photographer. To his annoyance, I often enjoyed reminding him of two things. One, the lyrics of his biggest hit, “Naughty”, and two, the fact I was a mere toddler when it released in 1987.

  Speak of the devil, a few minutes after Elodie and Suze departed, in walked David. He wore his usual faded jeans and jumper combo, ever present black rimmed spectacles in place. Sometimes he wore a suit and contact lenses, but only if he was going somewhere fancy. David was attractive in that ‘grey at the temples, retired male model’ sort of way. You could tell he was once stunning, but now his looks were more distinguished.

  �
��Thought I’d find you here. Do they put crack in the lattes or something?”

  “No, I come for the ambiance.”

  “The ambiance or the entertainment?” David asked, glancing around. He was aware of my obsession with Elodie and Suze, but none of Elodie’s stories seemed to shock him. That was probably because he’d experienced so many outrageous hijinks in the eighties. He was too jaded to be shocked.

  “Both.”

  He pulled out a chair and sat down, calling to the barista that he’d take a cappuccino. “So, what was this week’s escapade? Did she fly to Amsterdam and take in a live sex show? Perhaps hire a stripper to give her a private dance?”

  I shook my head. “She had a one-night stand with a kinky pilot who made sex noises like a lady.”

  David chuckled. “Of course she did.”

  “I think she’s fabulous. If only the rest of the world were so free with their sexuality.”

  “Yes, if only. We’d all be walking around with chlamydia. What a wonderful world it would be.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist. It’s quite possible to have an active and varied love life free of STDs so long as you’re careful. I can attest to that.”

  “Hmmm,” David mused just as the barista came and set his drink in front of him. “Can you remind me, what does this Elodie look like again?”

  I shot him a narrow-eyed glance. “You know what she looks like. I’ve already told you numerous times.”

  “Ah right. Now I remember, scarlet hair, eyes like emeralds. Who does that remind me of?”

  “Don’t be smug, David dear, it doesn’t become you.”

  “All I’m saying is, she does bare a striking resemblance to a certain Hollywood starlet. One Alicia Davidson, the only woman who ever came close to stealing that closely guarded heart of yours.”

  “All right,” I allowed. “I’ll admit she does look a little like Alicia, but that’s where the similarities end.” My tryst with the American actress was brief and intense. I was prepared to give her everything and she cast me aside. It hurt at the time, but that was two years ago. I was over it now.