Love Wins

by David C. Dawson

  “No, you haven’t,” Ashley protested, but Kirk laid a gentle finger across his lips to stem his words.

  “I have, I know I have, but I didn’t know why until now. “

  He looked long and deep into Ashley’s eyes, as if seeking something, some sign of approval. Seeming to find it, he continued. “I behaved abominably when you came by Venezia. I couldn’t handle having you there because I thought you were out of place. I thought you didn’t fit in with that part of my life. I wanted to keep you compartmentalized at Sweeties and in your apartment, in your bed, but not where I worked. I… I didn’t think you belonged there.”

  Kirk traced the soft contours of Ashley’s lips with his finger. Once started, he had to be truthful, he knew, or why bother. Even though the truth was painful, and even if he felt like the worst person in the world as he confessed.

  “That’s why I ran. I thought I’d kept everything separate, and when you showed up unexpectedly, you threw me for a loop. I left Venezia that night, and I hid in my apartment. Avoided Venezia, avoided Sweeties, avoided everyone who mattered to me. And I especially avoided you.”

  Kirk took a deep breath. Without warning, Ashley slid out of the chair and onto the floor before him, so they were on a more even level.

  “Go on,” he encouraged Kirk.

  “I went back to work tonight, and I had an epiphany. Everything was wrong there, nothing felt right. So I called Jen, and when she came to get me, I finally understood why that was. I missed being at the diner. Missed Jen and Jazzy. Missed cooking here. But most of all….” He swallowed. “Most of all, I missed you. You weren’t wrong. I was. I was out of place there, but with you, I feel right.”

  Kirk’s cheeks warmed as he spoke words he’d never said to anyone before, bared his soul.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but I can promise to try to make it up to you, no matter how long it takes. I… I’ve accepted a new job. I’m going to quit Venezia.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to work at Sweeties as the new chef.”

  Ashley’s eyebrows arched, and he broke into a wide smile. “That’s terrific. We’ll be able to work together.”

  Kirk nodded. “If you’ll accept my apology, I’d like to start over. And with time, I’d like to think maybe you’ll take me back, into your bed and into—”

  The rest of what he’d been about to say was swallowed when Ashley meshed their lips together, and they wound their arms about each other, and neither said anything for a long, long time.

  They came up for air, finally, breathing hard.

  “Come home with me tonight,” Ashley said. “And stay as long as you like.”

  It was Kirk’s turn to be surprised. “Are you asking me to move in with you?” He’d never even considered leaving the apartment he’d lived in for the past six years, but suddenly the idea held a great appeal. Especially if it meant being with Ashley.

  “That’s exactly what I’m asking,” Ashley confirmed, those simple words easing Kirk’s mind as they soothed his soul.

  Maybe it was impetuous of him, but maybe Kirk needed some of that in his life. Maybe Ashley was what he’d been looking for and had been too blind to see. But something deep inside him had always responded to the blond. No wonder he was able to sleep when they were together. Ashley brought him peace.

  They kissed again and again and again. When they finally broke apart and rose, Kirk noticed his wish book was sitting on Jen’s desk. It could stay there, as far as he was concerned. His future was here, and he was determined to make it a good one—for both of them.

  Ashley squeezed Kirk’s hand and said, “Let’s go tell the girls the news.”

  Kirk readily agreed. They left the office together without a backward glance, ready to face whatever the future might bring.

  JULIE LYNN HAYES was reading at the age of two and writing by the age of nine and always wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Two marriages, five children, and more than forty years later, that is still her dream. She blames her younger daughters for introducing her to yaoi and the world of M/M love, a world which has captured her imagination and her heart and fueled her writing in ways she’d never dreamed of before. She especially loves stories of two men finding true love and happiness in one another’s arms and is a great believer in happily ever after.

  She lives in St. Louis with her daughter Sarah and her cat Ramesses, loves books and movies, and hopes to be a world traveler someday. She enjoys crafts, such as crocheting and cross-stitch, knitting and needlepoint, and loves to cook. While working a temporary day job, she continues to write her books and stories and reviews, which she posts in various places on the Internet. Her family thinks she is a bit off, but she doesn’t mind. Marching to the beat of one’s own drummer is a good thing, after all.

  Blog: julielynnhayes.blogspot.com

  E-mail: tothemax.wolf@gmail.com

  Looking for George

  By David C. Dawson

  Betty’s innocent crush on actor George Clooney became something more when he saved her from a fall at the hotel she works at in London. When she discovers her Italian holiday trip will take her only a few miles from the actor’s summer villa… well, surely fate means for them to meet again.

  “I DON’T know why we’re bothering. You know he’s not going to be there. It’ll be like looking for a needle in a bloody haystack.”

  Deidre Davenport shuffled her eighteen-stone frame into a new position in the cramped coach seat and glowered at the sunlit Italian scenery speeding past the window.

  “He’s a megastar of TV and cinema. He’s not going to be buying postcards in the souvenir shop, now is he?”

  Her companion said nothing. Betty Simpkins knew Deidre was probably right. But when Betty discovered their nine-day luxury coach tour of Europe’s lakes and mountains passed within a few miles of the Italian villa belonging to George Clooney, well, her heart skipped several beats.

  Betty liked to think she and George were very close. She owned every episode of ER, the medical drama in which he appeared. She had tapes of every one of his movies. She even had a rare video clip of the Nick Clooney Show, featuring George’s dad with his very young son.

  Betty’s daughter, Charmaine, had given her the videotape two years ago. It was part of Betty’s sixtieth birthday present. Charmaine was such a resourceful girl, Betty reflected. She could trawl through the Internet for this unique and treasured birthday present, just for her mum. But what really cemented Betty’s relationship with the former star of ER was the photograph of George and Betty taken outside the gentlemen’s washroom of the Berkeley Hotel in London last year.

  That day in May, fate smiled on her warmly.

  She’d carefully set down the Cleaning in Progress sign and wheeled her trolley into the cavernous ground-floor washrooms of the luxury London hotel on the twenty-first of May. She never forgot that date; it was the day before her Wilfred’s sixty-third birthday. But why she forgot to check the cubicles before she began wiping down the basins, she would never know. That moment of memory lapse changed her life forever. She was softly humming her favorite hymn, “There is a Green Hill Far Away,” when she heard a warm American voice right behind her.

  “I guess I must be in the wrong washroom.”

  The bottle of Sparkle clattered from Betty’s shaking hand into the washbasin. She looked in the mirror to see a powerful, masculine frame standing behind her. The man’s smile beamed; his eyes twinkled mischievously.

  “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to startle you. Do you mind if I just freshen up a little?”

  Betty’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came. It was not that he was famous. Working at the Berkeley meant she often saw famous people, and she knew better than to stare. The hotel management frowned on such behavior from its staff.

  But this was George.

  The man who rescued the boy from the storm drain in episode seven, season two of ER. The man who foiled the Las Vegas casinos
in Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen. The man whose picture was on the wall of the downstairs toilet of 79 Wordsworth Avenue in Harlesden, North London. That same face was now smiling back at her in the mirror of the men’s toilets of the Berkeley.

  Her fingers slipped on the white enamel of the washbasin as she tried in vain to get a grip and stop herself from falling.

  It was then Betty felt the solid arms of a TV and film megastar grip her firmly round the waist.

  “Whoa, little lady! Take care there! Are you okay, ma’am?”

  Betty found her voice as a wave of sobering embarrassment washed over her.

  “I… I’m terribly s-sorry. Please, I’m, I’m so sorry.” She struggled to find an excuse for her Hollywood-style swoon. “My foot slipped on the floor. I should have mopped and dried it first. I’m so sorry.”

  George Clooney smiled disarmingly as he gently turned Betty round to face him.

  “You need to sit down, little lady, and have a glass of water.”

  With that, he propelled Betty Simpkins out of the gentlemen’s washroom and sat her on the chaise longue opposite the entrance. A moment later, a glass of water was handed to her. The bright, lively eyes from a hundred episodes of ER stared into hers. George Clooney was squatted on his haunches, directly in front of her.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, ma’am? I’m sorry I spooked you back there. Guess I should whistle in the washrooms at the Berkeley,” he added with a wink.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Clooney. I don’t know what came over me. I really am perfectly all right now.” Betty felt the color rush back to her cheeks as a flush of crimson spread across her face and neck.

  “Betty! Betty!” A large-framed lady, dressed in the same white and navy blue overall as Betty was wearing, bent down awkwardly to look at her.

  “What’s happened to you, dear? You’ve gone a very funny color.”

  Then the large-framed lady turned and saw the Hollywood superstar at her side.

  “Oh Lord, what are you…? I mean… I didn’t know it was….” Words failed her as she realized who was standing beside her.

  “Oh, Deidre, don’t fuss,” said Betty. “I’m perfectly all right, dear. My foot slipped on the floor in the gentlemen’s washroom, and Mr. Clooney was kind enough to help me. I’m so sorry, Mr. Clooney. I’ve been a lot of bother. Don’t let me hold you up any longer.”

  “That’s not a problem, ma’am. Just glad you’re okay.”

  As George Clooney stood and turned to go, Deidre found her voice.

  “Mr. Clooney, I hope you don’t mind. But Betty’s a big fan of yours. She has your photo hanging in her downstairs”

  “Deidre!” hissed Betty, seeing the camera phone in her friend’s hand. “You can’t possibly! Let Mr. Clooney go, right now!”

  “It’s quite all right, ma’am,” smiled the Hollywood heartthrob. “It’s the least I can do after giving you a fright back there.”

  Which is how Betty Simpkins of 79 Wordsworth Avenue in Harlesden added a second photograph, of herself with George Clooney, next to the one already hanging in the downstairs bathroom. It was taken by her traveling companion, Deidre Davenport, using her pink Nokia camera phone. The same camera phone Deidre was now using on this luxury coach tour of Europe’s lakes and mountains.

  Betty’s family knew of her long-standing infatuation with George Clooney. They gently teased her about it whenever a moment arose. She and Wilfred had been married for forty-one years. George Clooney had entered her life only fifteen years ago, when their daughter, Charmaine, was at home for several weeks with glandular fever. Charmaine had started watching afternoon reruns of ER. While she lay recovering on the settee in the back parlor, with a blanket covering her and a mug of tea in her hand, Dr. Doug Ross stared out of the TV screen like a modern-day Clark Gable. As Betty sat beside her daughter on those afternoons, she became besotted, innocently besotted.

  She loved her husband dearly, all the more for the way he tolerated her teenage crush on a man from the telly. It was Wilfred who suggested enlarging Deidre’s photo of Betty with George and framing it. Betty was sensitive enough not to hang it in the lounge or the bedroom but put it alongside the photograph she already had of George, hanging in the downstairs bathroom.

  After the incident in the gentlemen’s washroom at the Berkeley, Betty spent several hours on Charmaine’s computer, looking into every aspect of the man she loved from afar. It was a moment of great excitement when she discovered George Clooney had a summer villa in the Italian lakes. Even more so when she read it was only a few miles from the town where she and Deidre would be staying on the fifth night of their luxury coach tour.

  The holiday was Deidre’s idea. She’d booked it after Derek, her husband of thirty-nine years, left her for the ironing and dry cleaning supervisor at the Berkeley. Derek had met the girl when he accompanied Deidre to the staff Christmas dinner and dance the previous year. It was Deidre’s dream to tour the lakes and mountains of Europe on her ruby wedding anniversary. Nothing was going to deter her, certainly not a wayward husband.

  Betty offered to accompany Deidre, as her Wilfred no longer enjoyed their summer trips to Paignton on the west coast of England. He preferred to go off with the Steam Railways Preservation Society for a two-week working holiday, restoring a derelict branch line in the faded English seaside town of Weston-super-Mare.

  Deidre and Betty made an odd couple. Wilfred had once commented that they looked like a female Laurel and Hardy. Deidre was five feet ten inches in her stocking feet, broad-shouldered and big-bosomed. Betty was five feet four inches, stick thin, with a chest her mother had once unkindly described as “like two fried eggs on an ironing board.”

  Deidre was bossy and a leader. Betty was happy to follow without grumbling.

  It was the fifth day of the holiday. The day they would be staying at a hotel within a few miles of George Clooney’s Italian summer villa. Betty was tingling inside.

  Their holiday rep was a lovely girl from east London. She told them they would arrive at the Hotel Maggiore at about a quarter to four in the afternoon.

  Before they left England, Charmaine had helped her mother e-mail the hotel and book a car with a driver. Betty and Deidre would have his services for four hours that evening. It was an expensive indulgence, but Betty had saved her Christmas bonus especially for this day. It was probably the last chance in her life to meet the Hollywood superstar in person. Just one more time. Fate had allowed her that brief encounter in the gentlemen’s washroom of the Berkeley last year. Fate had brought her to this part of Italy, close to his summer villa. Now she must give fate a little nudge.

  Charmaine found the location of the villa and carefully wrote down the address for her mother. Betty was very proud of her daughter and how hard she worked. Charmaine had secured a responsible job with Harlesden’s leisure services department and was earning quite reasonable money. As Betty looked at the Italian countryside, she pictured her daughter at home now. Charmaine was still living with them but saving hard to move into her own little place. Betty was secretly pleased to have her at home still. It meant Charmaine could take care of their two dogs if ever they went away. Like now. When Betty announced she was going on the luxury coach tour with Deidre, Wilfred arranged a stay at a bed-and-breakfast in Weston-super-Mare so he could help the Steam Preservation Society clear an old signal box.

  The lovely holiday rep from east London was right about the timing. They arrived on the dot of 3:45 p.m. at the Hotel Maggiore. Betty and Deidre changed into their smartest clothes, then went to the sun lounge. The holiday brochure had described the hotel as having stunning views over Lake Como and the mountains beyond. Betty thought it was a beautiful spot. Even better, the hotel had Yorkshire tea.

  They only had a short time to wait before their car was due to arrive. Betty nervously twirled her hair between two fingers. She was as excited as a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. By contrast, Deidre huffed and puffed about the “terrible waste of money” and how
they would miss evening dinner, just for a wild goose chase.

  “And what is he going to say if he’s there when you ring the doorbell?” she grumbled. “‘Oh, do come in, Mrs. Simpkins. I’m always happy to welcome a stalker who I last met in a toilet in a London hotel’! We must be stark staring bonkers, Betty. Heavens, we could get arrested if we’re not careful!”

  Betty could think of nothing to say in reply. She knew it was one of the maddest things she had ever done. In fact, it was the only mad thing she had ever done. Her life was really very ordinary, she reflected. It was loving and happy, with her Wilfred, Charmaine, and the two dogs. But it was very ordinary.

  Just before five o’clock, the nice young man from the reception desk sought them out in the sun lounge to tell them their car had arrived. Waiting on the pavement outside the hotel was a smart but faded brown Mercedes saloon car. Standing by the open rear door was a dark-haired man, probably in his late fifties, dressed in black trousers and a white shirt. Betty noticed he was wearing trainers and not proper shoes. She imagined it was more comfortable for him when driving all day. All the same, she wished he had looked a little smarter and at least worn a jacket.

  “Buona sera, principesse!” said the man cheerily, tapping the heels of his trainers together and raising his right hand to his forehead in salute. “Good evening, my princesses. Where would you beautiful ladies like to go?”

  Before getting into the backseat of the car, Betty handed the man the piece of paper with George Clooney’s address carefully written on it in block capitals. As she stepped into the car beside Deidre, she heard the man whistle through his teeth.

  “Signore, you know who lives here, don’t you?”

  “Yes, my man,” said Deidre before Betty could say anything. “Mr. Clooney knows my friend Betty very well. They met in London last year. Is it far?”

  “Not far at all, signora, fifteen minutes maybe. But I have never….” The man trailed off into silence, aware of the steely glare from Deidre.