by Brea Brown
“Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. But if we’re going to be officemates, you should know.” When he says nothing else but makes a loud slash through half a page of text in front of him, I figure our conversation is over and run upstairs to get my laptop.
Chapter Fifteen
This is working out okay. I’m not writing exactly like I was before, but I think that has more to do with the fact that I’m not used to being in the same room with another person while I write than it does with the setting. It’s fascinating to observe someone else’s work habits.
For the most part, Lucas… er, Luke… is quiet. The only sounds he makes are the scratching of his pen and the occasional fluttering of paper as he flips the pages of the manuscript from the large, even stack in front of him to a smaller, more haphazard stack to his left. Every thirty minutes or so, he straightens the smaller stack. A couple of times, he’s abruptly pushed back from the desk, thrown his pen down, and stalked from the room, only to return ten minutes later with a cup of coffee or a bottle of water or—in one case—nothing at all.
After his latest storm-out, I’m shocked when I look at the clock on my laptop to see that two hours have passed, and I’ve hardly written anything. I guess I’ve been watching him more than I realized. Time to focus.
When he returns this time, I don’t even pause to glance at him in my peripheral vision. It doesn’t matter that I’m writing stream-of-consciousness gibberish to try to get my thoughts flowing (in this case, I will not look at him, even though he’s nice to look at, but he’s still a jerk, for the most part, although he has been a lot nicer here than he was in Boston—).
Before sitting down in his chair, he suddenly whirls on me, points, and says, “Read the last thing you wrote.”
My fingers freeze on the keyboard. “Huh?” I gulp and will the blood flow to return to my extremities.
“Read the very last thing you’ve written,” he reiterates more specifically.
“No!” I automatically refuse.
“Yes,” he insists. “Read it. You haven’t taken a break in hours. Read to me what you’re writing. Trust me.”
I skim up the page to something safe.
“No! Don’t choose the last thing you like that you wrote. I want to hear the last sentence to leave your brain.”
There’s no fucking way on this fucking earth that I’m reading what I typed. What’s he going to do, spank me? Oh, yes, please.
I blush at that rogue thought.
“Don’t be embarrassed. I don’t expect that everything you write sounds great the first time it hits the page. Come on… be a good sport.” He half-smiles.
I grit my teeth and read the second-to-last thing I typed, while he was out of the room. “Tissues with lotion are gross.” It’s inane, but at least it’s not humiliating.
He shakes his head. “That’s it. You need to take a break.”
“No, really. I hit a wall, but I’ll get back on track in a minute,” I swear.
Physically removing the laptop from my lap while I frantically work to delete the embarrassing line at the bottom, he mercifully closes it without glancing at the screen and sets it on the coffee table.
“Up,” he commands.
“Do I get a Scooby Snack if I obey?” I half-gripe, half-flirt.
“Maybe,” he flirts back. “You’ll have a happier editor, who won’t have to weed through a bunch of freewriting garbage after you turn in your manuscript, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll delete all that stuff!”
“Still… there will be some things that may seem critical to the story that you’ll keep, but it won’t be your best work, because you’re forcing it.” He yanks on my hand and pulls me to my feet. “Writing a book is not like running a marathon. You don’t push through the pain. If it’s painful, you stop and take a break.”
“It wasn’t painful.”
He scowls at me. “An analysis about facial tissue is painful. Now, come on. I need a break, too. And not just a walk to the toilet and back. A real break.”
Like a sassy teenager, I pull my hand from his admittedly light grasp and say, “What are we gonna do, yoga?”
He pretends to consider it. “Not a bad idea. But I thought we’d take a drive.”
“Where?”
“Who cares?” is his rejoinder.
I can think of at least one person who’d probably care a lot. And oddly enough, that thought makes me readily accept his invitation.
As we’re heading out the front door, he says, “Don’t worry; you can compare and contrast name-brand to store-brand tissues when we get back.”
I’m too relieved he didn’t see my comparison and contrast of Marblehead Luke and Boston Luke to put any bite behind my observation: “You are such a dickhead.”
The weary way I say it makes both of us laugh.
“I’ve been told that so many times that I’m starting to get a complex,” he jokes as he opens the passenger door to a low-slung silver import and squints down at me through the rain before closing it.
If I thought it were possible for him to care about what anyone else thinks of him, I’d almost feel sorry for him.
*****
We wind up at an old-fashioned tavern, and what started out as a having a couple of beers to unwind turned into drinking several pints of beer (for me) and both of us eating a full meal, which wouldn’t have been a problem, except…
“Paulette is going to kill us when we’re too full to eat her dinner,” I say in the car on the way back to the house.
Gruffly, he replies, “Am I on Paulette’s payroll as a professional eater, or is she on my payroll as a cook and housekeeper?”
“Well, I know,” I reply incongruously, having trouble articulating like an intelligent person. Fortunately, he seems to understand what I’m saying, anyway. “But it’s still rude that we ate someone else’s cooking behind her back.”
“She’ll get over it. Anyway… we didn’t plan for it to happen; it just happened.”
“Yeah, well we could have shown some self-control. Or at least called her to tell her not to cook dinner for us.”
“I refuse to feel guilty about this,” he says a lot less bravely than he originally seemed at the idea of disappointing the housekeeper. “Anyway, she still has to cook for Caroline, so it’s not like her efforts will be totally wasted.”
I bite my lip and stare out the car window, feeling worse and worse the closer we get to home and Paulette’s possible wrath. Not that she’s ever been anything but perfectly pleasant to me. But I don’t want that to change anytime soon.
“Yeah, but… she enjoys cooking for you,” I point out.
He laughs. “Don’t put this all on me! You were the one who said you were getting drunk, because your stomach was empty.”
“I was. It was!” I giggle and then groan, clutching at my belly. “But now it’s so full. And I’m still drunk.”
“Then it was all worth it,” he mutters sarcastically.
“Wait! What happened to the tough-talker who’s not on Paulette’s payroll?”
“I think he’s still sitting at the tavern,” he admits sheepishly.
When all I can do is laugh at him, he rubs his forehead and curses under his breath. As he pulls into the driveway and puts the car in park, he says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do… We’re going to go in there and take small helpings of everything she’s—”
“No! If I try to eat another bite, I’ll seriously throw up.” The mere thought of it is making me feel sweaty and nauseated.
“No, you won’t. You’ll be fine.” He consolingly pats my hand. “Plus, who knows? Maybe dinner’s not ready yet. We may have a while to let our first meal settle before we have to eat more.”
“Unless we’re allowed to wait until tomorrow morning, it’s not going to matter. I’m stuffed.”
Using the same tone I recognize from when he was first trying to convince Caroline to leave the house, he says, “Alright
. Then we’ll simply tell the truth and let Paulette know we’re not hungry, because we already ate at the tavern. We’ll bravely suffer the consequences, which may or may not be more severe than being uncomfortable from overeating.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Laying out our options?”
“No… Presenting our choices in a way that makes your way sound like the best way.”
He stares through the windshield. “I don’t hear you offering up any ideas, so technically both ways are my way. I’m willing to do whatever you want to do. We’ll present a united front.”
I push on his shoulder. He smiles but refuses to look at me.
Finally, I say, “It’s hardly raining anymore. How about we go for a walk and accidentally-on-purpose miss dinner? ‘Oops. We lost track of time.’”
He imitates Paulette, “‘Then you must be quite peckish. I’ve kept everything warm for you. Here. Heaping helpings for everyone!’ That’s how that scenario will go down.”
While laughing at his inevitably spot-on logic, I consider our three choices and decide, “Yeah, but at least with my option, we’ll be getting some exercise that not only buys us some time but could help with digesting meal number one.”
“Good point.”
“Thank you.”
“Walking in the rain, it is.”
*****
When Luke’s prophecy comes true almost word-for-word, it’s all I can do not to crack up. Then I stifle my giggles all through the meal as I watch him choke down every single bite of food Paulette sets in front of him. I take advantage of her not knowing much about my eating habits and push away my plate after a few torturous mouthfuls, with the claim that pasta always quickly fills me up.
I can no longer hold back my laughter, however, when she takes one look at Luke’s empty plate and says, “Oh, but Luke always has seconds of my spaghetti and meatballs,” and starts to load him up again, oblivious to his bulging eyes and sick grimace.
“What’s so funny?” she wonders, looking from him to me.
He pushes her serving spoon away from his plate. “Paulette, I can’t eat another bite. I… I think I may be coming down with something. I’m not very hungry tonight.” He suppresses a burp behind his fist and rests his head in his hand.
When I continue to laugh at his misery, she gently scolds me, “Now, it’s not nice to make fun of someone who’s feeling under the weather,” as if I’m about a quarter of my age.
As ludicrous as the situation is, I sober at her rebuke and mutter, “Right. Sorry. My bad.”
“Perhaps you should go lie down for a while, Luke,” she suggests sweetly. “I can bring you something for your stomach. Are you feeling feverish? It probably wasn’t very wise to go walking in the rain for so long.”
“Good God, woman, I’m fine!” he snaps before obviously thinking better of it and saying more softly, “It’s probably stress. I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning.”
With that, he rises from the table and trudges up the stairs. I try not to smile at the sound of his slow progress. Swish… clomp. Swish… clomp.
When he’s gone, Paulette shakes her head at me. “He works too hard. And as if that’s not enough, he has to deal with Her Royal Highness and all of her demands and shenanigans. It’s no wonder he’s short-tempered sometimes. I can’t help but want to mother him, though.” She carries our dirty plates and the serving bowls into the kitchen, muttering to herself under her breath.
Abandoned, I’m at a loss for what to do next. I go into Luke’s study and sit on the couch for a while, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like writing anything. I do, however, delete what remains of the embarrassing sentence I wrote before we left for the tavern (“I will not look at him, even though he’s pretty nice to look at—” is still there for anyone to see). Then, on a whim, after I back up my work for the day, I password protect my computer and my manuscript files. I’ve been meaning to do it since Luke suggested it after admitting to reading my document without permission. I just keep forgetting. But if we’re going to be working in the same room, and I’m going to write stupid, mortifying things to pass the time when I run into a spot of writer’s block, then I’d better protect myself from abject humiliation.
After I shut down my computer for the day, I consider Luke’s earlier idea to read a book. I search through the library across the hall for nearly fifteen minutes before finding anything that remotely interests me (I knew Tom Ridgeworthy was prolific, but holy shit! I’m assuming Luke has a full collection of the man’s books; unfortunately, not a single one of the nearly two-dozen novels about political intrigue is my cup of tea). I eventually select a Toni Morrison book I read in college but wouldn’t mind reading again, now that I have some more worldly experiences under my belt. Ha! It’s probably still going to blow my mind.
All the food and alcohol I’ve consumed in the past couple of hours has made me sleepy and sluggish, so I decide the safest place to read is in bed, where I can pass out and not have to move any more than to pull the covers over myself when I get chilly in the middle of the night. It’s a few minutes before 9:00, but as I make my way up the stairs, the book in one hand and the banister in the other, I’m eagerly anticipating a full night’s deep sleep on the heavenly mattress.
At the top of the stairs, a sound brings me to a halt.
Moaning. At first, I think it’s that kind of moaning, and I almost turn right back around and resign myself to another night on the sofa in the basement. Then I realize how illogical that notion is, considering the only two people up here hate each other.
Or do they…?
In a matter of seconds, I picture Caroline waiting for Luke on his bed when he came up here to nurse his sick tummy, and yada, yada, yada…
At that thought, I turn to trot down the stairs, but something other than disgust and horror makes me stand firm on the top step. I force myself to identify the feeling. It’s not necessarily jealousy, although that’s close enough that I keep thinking that must be what it is. No. It’s not, though. It’s… it’s the same feeling I got when, as a kid, I’d go to the haunted corn maze every Halloween. More specifically, it’s a combination of feelings. It’s excitement mixed with fear, dread, and irresistible curiosity. I know there’s likely going to be a hideous sight when I come around the corner, but nothing in the world is going to stop me from looking.
When the next moan drifts down the hallway, I’m resolved to see who’s making the sound and why. It’s loud enough that I can hear it, but soft enough that I can’t tell if the moaner is male or female; if he or she is moaning in pleasure or pain (or both). Must investigate. Have to know. Inquiring minds and all that…
Once I’ve determined that the keening is coming from Luke’s room, I almost chicken out, but when I see the door’s not latched shut, I figure it’s as much the room’s occupant’s fault as it is my own if I happen upon something private. Plus, what if there’s something really wrong? It would be irresponsible of me to ignore the plight of this poor person, if they’re in enough pain to be making so much noise.
I push against the door and cringe while peeking through the widening gap I’m creating between the door and its frame. “Hello? Luke?” I query meekly.
“Jayne?” he weakly calls back.
Since he doesn’t ask me to go away, I enter the room and have to cover my mouth and bite down hard on my lip to keep from laughing out loud at the sight before me. He’s lying across his bed on his back in his underwear and a white t-shirt, his legs draped over the side of the mattress, his arm flopped over his eyes.
My, oh my. My imagination hasn’t been doing him justice. He’s lean without being skinny, muscular without being bulky, furry without being hairy, and he fills out those boxer briefs quite nicely…
“Jayne?” he repeats, making me flinch guiltily. “Please, kill me.”
“Go into the bathroom and make yourself throw up,” I advise, tearing my eyes away
from his crotch.
He pulls his arm away from his face and turns his head to look at me. “No! That’s disgusting!”
“Yeah, but you’ll feel better instantly.”
“Why did she give me so… much… food?” His hand rubs ineffectually over the engorged belly under his t-shirt.
“I think the better question is, why did you eat it?”
“Because I don’t have a dog to feed under the table.”
“You might want to consider getting one.”
Before thinking too much about it, I sit on the foot of his bed, my back to him (I’ve gawked at him long enough in his skivvies). Fingering the spine of the Toni Morrison book, I say, “It was sweet of you to make yourself sick eating that spaghetti, so you wouldn’t hurt Paulette’s feelings.”
“Stupid, you mean?”
I knock the book against my knee. “You didn’t do it because you were too stupid to know better. You did it in spite of knowing better. Because you care about how your actions affect her.”
“Yeah, I’m Boss of the Year.”
“I won’t tell anyone you’re nice sometimes. I know you have a reputation to uphold.”
He cracks an eye at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Big, mean Mr. Editor, storming around, upholding the laws of grammar and mechanics, the only person standing between misplaced modifiers and the downfall of civilization.”
“Have you lost your mind? Can’t you see I’m dying here?”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “You’re going to be fine. Do you want me to find some antacids for you?”
“Would I have to eat them?”
“Yes…”
“Then, no.”
“Okay, then.”
“What did you mean about my being big, mean Mr. Editor? I’m not mean.”
I laugh at the ceiling.
“What?” He tries to prop himself up on his elbows but falls onto his back after a short struggle and says breathlessly, “Do I have time to hand-hold? No. But I’m not mean. I’m firm. And… no-nonsense and… and… efficient.”