by Heidi Lowe
"Where do you want them?"
I pointed to the guesthouse. "Just in there."
He went ahead as I retrieved the remaining bags. He waited for me at the entrance, as though afraid to step inside. Or maybe he was being courteous. I told him to put them on the foyer floor.
"Thanks again," I said. "It would have been a complete disaster if you hadn't been there. I would still be picking up bits of broken glass and tomato sauce off the floor."
"Glad I could help." I saw his eyes dart to the No Vacancies sign in the living room window, the sign Mrs Howlett was supposed to take down weeks ago, as soon as the renovations were complete. "That's a shame. I'm actually looking for somewhere to stay."
I sized him up, did a quick, mental assessment to determine whether or not he was a psychopath, someone we absolutely didn't want staying with us. He seemed relatively harmless, and he had just helped me with the shopping. How bad could he have been?
"We might have a room spare. If you wait here, I can check with the owner, put in a good word for you." I winked at him, then hurried away to find Mrs Howlett.
"Who were you talking to? And what have you done with the rest of our groceries?" she asked when I trotted into the kitchen.
"There's a nice man outside who wants to rent a room from you."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "Nice? What does that mean?"
I chuckled. "What does it usually mean? He seems normal enough. He helped me carry the bags in."
She pondered this for a moment. "Did you already tell him we had vacancies?"
"I said we might. Come on, Barbara, you said you were ready to start renting again. Now's your chance."
After a long, deliberative silence, she sighed. "I want to meet him first. Tell him to come in."
He had his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans when I returned to him. He raised his eyebrows in anticipation of the answer.
"So here's the deal. Mrs Howlett, the lady who owns this place, is very particular about who she lets stay here. You kind of have to convince her that you're not a serial killer or anything like that."
He chortled. "I'm not a serial killer. But would I tell you if I was?"
I shrugged with a laugh. "Hey, I'm not the one you have to convince."
He brought the bags with him, and followed me through the house, into the kitchen. Once he set the shopping on the counter, he extended his hand to Mrs Howlett, who for some reason had scrunched up her face in the meanest way. This was the face she wore with the general public: unfriendly, unapproachable, someone you did your best to avoid. No one would have believed she'd been one of the nicest, most generous people I'd ever met.
"Mrs Howlett, is it? My name's Jimmy."
After scrutinizing his hand for the longest time, she gave it a cautious shake.
"And what brings you to our small town, Jimmy?" she asked.
"I'm just passing through. See, I'm into architecture, and this place has a lot of Norwegian-inspired architecture. It's cheaper coming here than going to Norway." He and I were the only ones to laugh. Mrs Howlett didn't seem to find his reply at all amusing, and only narrowed her eyes further, until they were thin slits of suspicion.
"Hmm," was all she said.
He cleared his throat, looked at me for help, but all I could do was shrug. He was on his own. My opinion of him meant very little to Mrs Howlett, who had a firm dislike for about ninety-nine percent of the people she met. How uncanny it was, then, that the only two people she liked in town were now dating each other.
"I don't want to put you out," Jimmy added quickly. "If you don't have the space, I'll look for somewhere else, it's not a problem."
"How long will you be staying?" This was closer than any other prospective guests had ever gotten. Most were turned away before they could even open their mouths to inquire about the rooms.
"A week, maybe two. I can pay upfront. Money's not an issue."
She waved a dismissive hand at him as he started pulling his wallet out of his pocket. "Fine, you can stay. But any funny business and you're out."
When she left us, after asking me to check him in and show him to one of the rooms, he looked at me, let out a sigh of relief. "Wow, she's...intense." He stood back while I put the shopping away.
I laughed. "She's actually a sweetheart, but don't ever tell her I said that. She doesn't want anyone else to know."
I felt his eyes on me the whole time I unpacked the groceries, lingering a little too long. The glimpse of his wedding ring put my fears that he was interested in me to bed, however.
"I didn't catch your name."
"It's Abby – Abigail."
"Abigail? So, how long have you been staying here? You don't sound local."
"A few months. I'm not local," was all I would give him, figuring it wise not to start telling strangers about my memory loss.
"Where are you from originally? I'm detecting a southwestern twang. Am I close?"
"Are you staying alone, or will your wife be joining you?" I said, diverting the conversation away from me. Not only couldn't I answer his questions, I didn't want to. I knew he was probably just being polite, but his inquisitiveness made me uncomfortable.
He frowned, then looked down at his hand. He smiled. "Oh, no, she's not really into architecture. A building's just a building to her."
I chuckled. "I have to agree with her." Architecture, structures, stuff like that didn't interest me. Take Oakwood's buildings, for example. I wouldn't have known they were Norwegian-inspired if he hadn't said.
"Hey, that's a lot of wine. Are you having a party or something?"
"No, I'm cooking for my girlfriend tonight. We seem to get through a lot of wine."
The look he gave me then, I couldn't put into words. Although his expression remained blank, it wasn't a genuine blankness, like he was trying his best not to have a reaction. It was weird. I imagined that was exactly the look I'd given Tiffany when I found out she was gay. Taken aback, but trying not to look it so as not to offend.
"Your girlfriend?" Was that disgust I detected in his voice? No, that must have been my imagination. Ever since entering into a gay relationship, I'd been extra wary of people's reactions, keeping my ears peeled for even a hint of homophobia, hearing it where it wasn't.
"Yeah. I'm making pizza from scratch." I watched him closely, waiting for signs of bigotry.
Finally, he let out a little laugh. "Sounds messy...making pizza from scratch, I mean. You could save yourself the trouble and order one in, pretend you made it yourself."
I chuckled. "I think she'd notice. Though the thought did briefly cross my mind."
"Great minds think alike." He gave me a cheeky smile. "I should go get my bag from the car, try and get some sleep. It's been a long drive."
"Where have you traveled here from?" I asked his retreating form.
"Seattle," he said.
The soothing sounds of Kenny G's saxophone poured out of the Mrs Howlett's old radio across the room, making the mood sexier than it already was. I didn't think it could get sexier than my beautiful blonde girlfriend lying half-naked on my bed, with her tongue in my mouth, where it had been for the past half an hour.
Her kisses tasted sweet, like the wine we'd been consuming all evening. She let her hands stroke my back, working their way every now and then to my butt, into my panties.
"Mmm," I moaned against her lips. "I can't stop kissing you. I'm officially addicted."
Her laugh was smoky, filled with sex. "That makes two of us."
"How did you like my cooking?"
She rubbed her nose against mine. "It was delicious. Divine."
I narrowed my eyes at her, my smile filled with suspicion. As someone who'd tasted the homemade pizzas myself, neither of those words could ever have been used to describe them.
"You're such a liar," I said, shaking my head at her. "You're just being polite."
Her eyes widened in mock offense. "I never lie. I...embellish a little, that's all."
/> I stole a kiss from her. The problem with kissing someone like Tiffany, someone soft, and warm, and irresistible, was that you always wanted more. One kiss – a dozen kisses – was never enough. When I tried to take it further, lay her down and work a sneaky hand behind her back to undo her bra, she stopped me.
"Nice try," she said, kissing me for the effort. "We agreed that we wouldn't do anything naughty here, out of respect for Mrs Howlett."
Like a child being denied their favorite thing in the world, I groaned in frustration. Why had we made that stupid promise? And better yet, why had I been foolish enough to think I could stick to it?
"Well that settles it," I said, letting myself be cuddled and spooned instead. "From now on, we're meeting up at your place."
She pecked my ear, chuckling. "Are you really sulking because you didn't get your own way?"
"Yes," I said, jokingly. "I hate not getting my own way."
She was so in tune with me, knew when I was being serious and when I was joking. My feigned petulance only made her laugh and kiss me again, which was exactly the result I was going for.
"It's a good thing I was just as crazy about you as you were about me, then," she said.
It seemed so long ago that I was professing my attraction to her, my desire to be more than a friend. Every day since then had been like a dream come true, so much so that I'd already forgotten what it felt like not to be with her. It had never occurred to me back then that she could have said no, turned me down, relegated me to the friend-zone for eternity. The thought made me shiver.
I turned to face her, dead serious now. "It would have been too hard to still be friends with you. To watch you with other women, knowing I'd ruined my chances the first time around. I really had it bad."
Her eyes were soft when she looked at me. "All you had to do was say the words and I would have been yours. You know that, right?"
"I do now." We'd never really spoken about the events preceding our relationship. The one-time tryst, then her subsequent fling with Sarah. The past played no part in our relationship going forward, so we'd both agreed to leave it where it was.
She had a piece of fluff in her hair, which I removed because it had been bothering me for several minutes. There she was, beautiful and perfect, almost ruined by a stray piece of fluff.
"Is it really true that Mrs Howlett thought we were romantically involved from the beginning?"
I nodded and laughed. "Yep. She saw right through us, before we ever did."
"When she saw us looking at each other, she could probably see that we wanted to rip each other's clothes off!"
After some more kissing we switched off the lamp and settled down for the night, in each other's arms. It took a mere five minutes for the conversation to start up again, as usual, because we always had more to say to each other. We'd become best friends and lovers.
"Hey, I saw a guy in the kitchen when I went down to get the other bottle of wine. Who is that?" Tiffany said in the darkness.
"That's Jimmy. He's staying here for a couple of weeks. Can you believe I finally convinced Mrs Howlett to rent a room?"
"Wow, how did you manage that?"
"Well, I said he seemed like a nice guy, and it worked in his favor that he helped me bring the shopping in."
She chuckled and snuggled her face into the back of my neck, holding me tighter. "That was enough to convince her? She's going soft."
"No, she doesn't like him. Warned him not to try anything with her."
We laughed. Eventually, she drifted off to sleep. It took me a little longer to fall into a slumber. I was sure I heard creaking outside my bedroom door, like someone was there. It unsettled me enough to force me out of bed. I pressed my ear against the door, listening for any signs of life – breathing, anything. When I was satisfied that no one was there, I crept back into bed, cuddled close to Tiffany and drifted off.
NINETEEN
My hand couldn't move fast enough, couldn't keep up with my brain as I scribbled some new lyrics down into my notepad. I was on fire today, for some reason. No, I knew what it was. I'd spent the night at Tiffany's the night before, and we'd made love into the early hours of the morning. My fluidity with the pen was her doing. I was always at my most creative after a night of passion, even going so far as to pause halfway through our love-making to jot down a line or two.
"Does that make me your muse?" Tiffany had asked once, finding the whole thing hilarious, as she watched me scribbling away crazily, butt naked.
Now, back at the guesthouse, I'd been at the piano for half an hour, and had already completed a whole verse. I felt a presence behind me, like someone was watching me, and when I twisted around to see, Jimmy was standing at the door. This was the third time in the week that he'd been staying here that he'd snuck in to watch me play.
"Hey." He gave me a little wave. His dark hair was wet, glistening, like he'd just stepped out of the shower.
"Uh, hi," I said, suddenly feeling exposed. How long had he been there, watching me while I worked? The process was such a personal, private thing, not to be shared with some stranger. The tone in my greeting wasn't friendly, and that was deliberate. I wanted him to know it was rude sneaking up on people like that.
"Did you hear about Princess Diana?"
I frowned. Tiffany had been schooling me on my general knowledge, so I wasn't completely oblivious to who Diana was. Why he'd brought her up, however, was a mystery.
"No... What?"
"She died this morning. Car crash. It's all over the news."
I hadn't switched on a television all day, nor left the house. When I was in the zone, I hated distractions, the TV being the biggest of all.
"That's terrible. Her poor sons." I remembered she had two young boys.
"Yeah. The whole of England has probably come to a standstill." He stepped into the room, took a seat on the couch, and looked as though he were there to stay. "What are you working on?"
"The same thing I was working on the last time you asked me."
"The musical? So when do I get to see this zombie musical? It sounds...intriguing."
I shrugged. "Probably never. My chances of getting any musical theater produced are slim to none. It's all about who you know, I guess. Tiffany might be able to pull some strings, but it's a long shot."
He frowned as he often did when I brought her up. "Wait, I thought you said she was a nurse..."
"She is, but she does some amateur theater as well." Talking about her, unlike it did for him, always brought a smile to my face. "She's multi-talented."
"Sounds like a keeper."
I tried to read his expression, to see whether his comment was ingenuous, but couldn't. Was he being sarcastic?
"I would really like to hear some of the stuff you've written. I might not be around to see the big performance."
"It's pretty bad," I said, feeling my cheeks burn. Performing and working through the kinks with Mrs Howlett was one thing; showcasing my own work in front of a real audience was quite another. Was I ready for the "big time"?
"Come on. I promise I won't heckle you."
After a brief moment of deliberating, I gave in, flicked through my notepad for one of the better songs in the compilation. My first attempt was a false start.
"Great start," I said with an embarrassed laugh.
"Take your time. Play like this is your big moment, like you're on Broadway."
Following his direction, I closed my eyes and played like my life depended on it, crooning out my own lyrics in the worst singing voice ever heard on the planet Earth. Eventually I forgot there was another person in the room with me.
When I was done, I opened my eyes, and he broke into applause.
"Bravo!" he cheered. "That was remarkable."
I giggled. "Remarkable?"
"That's right. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You're very talented, Abby."
I took a bow. "Why thank you."
"Have you been playing long? I mean, you sound like you've b
een doing this forever."
"Yeah, long enough," was all I could offer without alluding to the accident and my subsequent amnesia. Most of his questions to me were answered in similarly vague ways, and he asked a lot of them. About me, about the guesthouse, about Mrs Howlett, about the town. He might have been the most curious person I'd ever met.
He jumped to his feet. "I have an idea. Why don't you play, and I'll sing along?"
I gaped at him, amused. "You want to sing?"
"I'll have you know my voice has been compared to the likes of Jon Bon Jovi," he said, pretending to be offended.
I didn't know who that was, though surmised that he must have been a good singer.
"Okay, I'll give you a shot," I said, flicking through my notepad. "I've got a song for you. See if you can hit those high notes."
"Bring it on."
I settled on a song, one I knew would be a challenge for even the most skilled of singers, then handed him the notepad. "Let's see what you're made of."
His voice, I was surprised to learn, wasn't half bad. Some of the notes stretched him to his limit, but he made a good effort. So much so that we moved on to another song, and another after that. By the third, we were chortling, because apparently my handwriting was so bad he couldn't read it, and thus had to improvise, rather comically.
"Nor garlic, nor skates made of wood..."
I chuckled as I hit the keys, past trying to correct him.
"I think that's supposed to be stakes..." came a voice behind us, raised above the music, the singing, the merriment.
I stopped, spun around to see Tiffany. She'd just finished her shift, and must have come straight from work, because she still had on her blue scrubs.
The smile she gave me was filled with confusion, as she looked between me and Jimmy.
"Hey!" I said, hopped off the piano seat and rushed to her, wrapping my arms around her, and smashing my lips to hers. "I didn't hear the bell ring. What are you doing here? I thought we weren't seeing each other until tomorrow."
Having spent almost every day together since hooking up, we'd both agreed that it was unhealthy, and had settled on spending one day apart. Clearly that had been as much of a challenge for her as it had been for me.