An Unexpected Kind of Love

by Hayden Stone

  “I’m about to cry with joy over here. There’s so much to see in you, Aubrey. I’ve years of study on the topic. I’m, in fact, a world-renowned authority.”

  “Ha.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Now I’m terribly embarrassed.”

  Aside from a couple of disastrous post-Eli dates, after enough pressure from family and friends to get on with things, I reluctantly tried to get on with things. Spirited efforts—disastrous results.

  My heart back then wasn’t in it, still shaped for Eli. There’s no guide on how to move on from something like that. My first real relationship. We got together young, still in school. Eli, I thought then, was the man who was my future, or so I believed, along with my past.

  If only Barnes Books sold books about how to exorcise exes from our past. That’d be brilliant late-night reading. God. Why don’t I stock titles like that?

  “Just enjoy this,” Lily tells me. “That’s all you need to do. Don’t think about it.”

  “That goes against my nature. Enjoyment, pleasure. Work needs doing. You should know that by now.”

  “I know. But try. For me. For you, more than anything.”

  “’Kay. Fine. I’ll think about it.”

  “Excellent. You should listen to me more often. I’m very wise.”

  “Very modest too. There’s one problem, though.”

  “What’s that?” Lily’s concern radiates over the line.

  “I haven’t heard from Blake today. At all. What if he…regrets it? Being with me?”

  She tuts. “How could anyone regret being with you?”

  “Oh, easily. Because I’m ten flavors of awkward, that’s how. But I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  “Well, he must be busy. And, like you said, if you were up all night, he probably needs to catch up on sleep.”

  It sounds reasonable. It is reasonable. Except—

  “He said he wasn’t going to sleep because he had work to do straight away.”

  Lily’s quiet for a moment. She’s probably going to say something terribly logical, rather than saying I’ve already fucked this up. “Then he’s working and probably crashing out right after. Simple. Just try not to worry. If he was out with you all night, clearly he’s into you.”

  What a thought. Perma-blush is back, all July-hot and close. On the floor, my cat lies on her back sunny-side up, stretched out in the crack of sunbeam spilling onto the rug between stacks of books. She has to be right. Blake’s collapsed with exhaustion somewhere, trying to restore himself.

  “You’ll hear from him soon enough. Just enjoy a night off. Shop’s still closed, right?”

  “Yeah. I should be working on something, though.” Relaxing isn’t second nature to me, not by a long shot. Like, it’s missed the mark by several shots, actually. Especially not when I think of Blake. My face reddens.

  “Try.”

  I relent. “’Kay.”

  “’Kay.”

  When we hang up, I go back to reading the last of Maurice, and start on my next novel.

  In the privacy of my flat, nobody knows if I’m reading a rom-com. For research. Customer recommendations and all that. Not because I’ll like it. No one will ever know.

  Hours pass, and I hardly move from my sofa sprawl, absorbed.

  Eventually, a text comes with a photo of a small green bean in the palm of someone’s hand—must be Blake’s?—along with a brief catch up later. At least, it’s got to be a bean, though I’ll be damned if I know what it is, well out of my bean comfort zone, which admittedly lingers around the baked beans mark.

  Can’t wait, I text back.

  And, after a futile search for beans, I give up. Who knew there were so many kinds? What do the different beans symbolize? Like some kind of Victorian flower code. Except for violets and tulips, we have legumes.

  I fall asleep again.

  Later comes. And goes.

  I don’t wake up with any bean or Blake-related insights. Or any texts, aside from the reminder I programmed to place a grocery order.

  The evening technically stretches into tomorrow; it’s just past midnight when I wake again. Again, there’re no messages on my phone. Glum, I check the shop email, and then because I can’t help myself, Blake’s Instagram for the latest post.

  Unfortunately, there’s no recent update—but the last photo was posted over twelve hours ago, showing a spectacular sunrise over London’s skyline.

  Chapter Eleven

  When I wake up in the afternoon, everything’s still. There’s no commotion downstairs.

  Dust motes hang in the filtered sunbeam through the mostly drawn curtains. My cat sleeps beside me. It’s early for the filming to have wrapped. For a while, I stay there, unmoving, in case they’re in the middle of a quiet shot.

  Eventually, I sit up. Bare-chested with the heat, my skin’s so ghostly that I’m practically translucent, an indigo dragon winding from my shoulder to my arm, its tail and talons around my bicep. I reach for a black T-shirt and pull on my jeans.

  I find my phone to check for any more texts. Unfortunately, no texts from Blake, with or without bean banter. Disappointed, I tell myself he has to be busy, getting on with things. He’s only in London for a few days before he has to go back home to America.

  Don’t get too invested, I try to tell myself. There’s some niggling worry that it might be too late for that.

  After thirty minutes of creeping around my flat, I decide no one’s downstairs after all, and I go to investigate.

  Everyone’s gone, along with all of their film equipment. Shelves are out of order. Books are also out of order. Most troubling of all, there’re deep gouges and chips in my hardwood floor.

  I gawp unhappily. Furniture’s clearly been dragged over the floor. To add further insult to injury, there’s a hole cut into one wall, including through the wood lathing—a hole that has absolutely no business being there, where no hole existed before.

  There’s an envelope on the counter addressed to me. I open it and pull out the letter.

  Dear Aubrey,

  My sincere apologies about the damages to the floor and wall. We’ve finished with this location for the filming. We will arrange for repairs. We see that the floor is quite old and has previous repair patches. I’ll send you an email tonight and let’s chat about how to proceed before bringing the lorry back with the rest of your shelves and books. We received your post while you were away today, which I’ve placed on the back counter.

  Kind regards,

  Alice

  I want to ball the paper up and chuck it against the wall. Or scream. Or do something else dramatic as I stare at the obvious chunks taken out of the floors. Sure, the floors are old and worn in places, but they had done a great job in refinishing them a few days earlier, making them look as good as they could. Now it looks like they put even more effort into wrecking the floors than buffing them to mirror polish.

  These were the floors my father installed. The damages make me feel like I’m letting him down. That he’d be disappointed in me. Plus, there’s definitely no money for repairs. God, I can’t even afford to fix the damn kitchen sink properly, never mind replace all of the floors, which would probably cost a small fortune. Or a mid-sized fortune.

  Sure, the film people say that they’ll cover the cost, but will they cover all of it? Would the floors be as nice? Plus, the disruption in sorting this out means more delays in reopening the shop, and all the time to put it back together again. Which means lost sales.

  Lost sales leads me to thinking of reopening. Reopening leads me to—

  Gemma.

  She was supposed to be watching the film people.

  I text her.

  The shop’s been wrecked. What happened?

  If nothing else, she’s a prompt correspondent. But then, she live
s between apps and scrolling, so I shouldn’t be that surprised.

  Shit yeah meant to tell you Mercury’s in retrograde bad for communication and floors and all of that don’t worry they’ll fix it soon. x

  Does that explain what happened to Blake? The lack of punctuation in her text? Mercury in retrograde? Is that really a thing?

  Frowning, I shake my head to clear it and respond. Focus.

  I don’t care what celestial events were unfolding. You were meant to watch them.

  A moment later, my phone lights up.

  They dragged a metal cabinet and scraped the floors but if it makes you feel any better I yelled at them. Gx

  It doesn’t.

  I rest the cool phone against my forehead like I can will Blake to message me. Also this is probably a good way to fry my brain. So much for Mercury and communications.

  In a daze, I venture out into the blaze of the late afternoon sun, going for a walk to try to clear my head. At the café, and a flat white later, I see my barista friend Charlie, who asks if I’m all right.

  “Yeah, good,” I say.

  I should never have said yes to the filming. It’s just brought disaster.

  When I check Blake’s Instagram again, I scroll through his feed, full of images of him looking all too gorgeous.

  He certainly won’t remain a C-list celeb for long. Everyone will fall into serious like too, and then be laid to waste like me. At least then we can all be ruined together when he’s an A-lister.

  In my misery, I walk the streets around my shop.

  It’s too hot for food. Too hot for anything. I don’t want to sit in my tiny bedsit for the evening quite yet. I don’t want to look at the ruined floors.

  Instead, I turn to go to the photography shop a couple of streets over, to admire cameras I can’t afford in an effort to cheer myself up, which probably is a bit twisted. Occasionally they get in some cool vintage cameras, which are more my budget. I have a few back in my flat. Even though they don’t cost as much as a new digital camera, the vintage cameras are all the more unattainable now due to the shop’s problems, like everything else. The shop and my dating life, it’s all a disaster.

  As I reach for the door handle to go in, the door swings open and I nearly collide—yet again—with the person I least want to see when I’m out of sorts like this: Blake.

  He didn’t text, which must mean he regrets our date.

  Sometimes, Soho doesn’t feel any larger than a postage stamp, especially when trying to avoid someone.

  “How can you possibly be everywhere at the same time?” I blurt. Frustrated, I manage to keep my balance this time and not end up flat on my face. My face is on fire.

  “Aubrey? Are you all right? I was going to call you when I got back to the hotel. What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” I retort sharply, crossing my arms tight across my chest. “This is my street.”

  Blake’s eyes widen. He holds up his hands. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s wrong!” I practically vibrate with all of the pent-up rage and frustration and please don’t let me burst into tears or totally lose my cool at him. But who am I fooling? Because I don’t have any chill and he’s nothing but. “No thanks to you and your stupid film.”

  He steps onto the pavement toward me. My scowl is so fierce on him that it’s incredible he doesn’t burst into flames with my fury. Like everything is his fault. Concern is plain across his face.

  “I don’t understand. What happened?”

  “Of course you don’t.” I scowl. “You didn’t text back, for starters.”

  His expression softens. “Aha.”

  “Aha?”

  Blake droops. “I’m sorry. I should’ve stopped by. Or left a note, or something. I was thinking of you, I promise. It was a long day of filming, and then I fell asleep. And then I think someone on the crew ‘borrowed’ my charger and I couldn’t text.”

  I grunt a grudging acknowledgment. That’s probably all very reasonable. Except I’m not quite in a reasonable place. “The film people ruined my floor.”

  We consider each other. Blake’s face is creased with worry.

  “What do you mean they ruined your floor?” he asks at last.

  “I mean exactly that.” Relenting slightly at his expression, I sigh. It’s not right to take out the shop’s problems on him. “I mean, of course I know that’s not your fault.”

  Blake gives me a hopeful look. “Could I…come see? Maybe I can fix it.”

  I give him a wry smile. “It’s not your job to fix things. Your job is the acting bit. I’m sure it says that in your contract.”

  “You’d be amazed at the things I can do,” Blake says cheerfully.

  About then, a customer skirts us trying to get into the shop.

  “What…what’re you doing here anyway?” I ask.

  “Heard there was a good photography shop nearby from someone on the crew. So I came to check out the cameras before they closed for the day. They have some nice stuff in there.”

  “They do,” I acknowledge. Somehow, I feel awkward in front of him, under the midday sun beating down on us. There’s not the magical light of dawn around us this time.

  “Actually, I planned to come by your shop to show you what I got.”

  Startled, I stare at him. Whatever I expected him to say, it wasn’t that. He actually planned to come see me? With a camera kit, no less? Which means he was thinking of me. Goose bumps cover my arms, with that, and the earnest way Blake looks at me. It’s thoroughly devastating.

  “I mean, I don’t want to keep you from what you were doing—” he blurts.

  “I don’t want to make you go back in—” I blurt at the same time.

  Then we laugh. Blake reaches to squeeze my hand. My heart pounds at the thrill of his touch.

  “Let’s go back to my shop, then. I’m not buying a camera today,” I confess. Spending time with Blake is a far more exciting prospect, even if that means looking at ruined floors together. We walk through Soho, darting tourists and narrow pavements, passing ramen places and tattoo shops on the back streets as we shortcut back. The street looks bare without the catering tent and caravans.

  At Barnes Books, the bells on the back of the door ring as we enter, the only thing back in place in the shop.

  Blake blinks in the darkness of the shop compared to the dazzle of bright outside, also startled by the changes and damages.

  “Well, that’s bullshit,” Blake declares, as we stare at the floor together for a long moment. “I can see why you’re mad.”

  “I can’t put the shop back in order till this is sorted.” Glum, I shake my head. “But you don’t want to hear about shop problems.”

  “I’d love to hear about your problems. Shop or otherwise.”

  I glance over at Blake, who looks intently at me, his expression soft. And then I realize belatedly I didn’t have a plan for us other than staring at the floor together, which is a rather shit second date idea, if that’s what this is. Though our first date was long enough to be three dates combined, so this is probably date four, and who knows what the hell people do on date four.

  “Are you sure?” I shake my head at the idea, but relent at a smile. “They’re terribly dull. Would you like some tea? I can offer that, at least.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Who knows if Blake normally drinks tea, but if he doesn’t, he’s not confessing.

  We navigate through the shop and past the office and into the tiny kitchen. I fill the kettle, set out the teapot and cups, and make my way through the usual tea-making routine, then lean back against the counter to wait.

  Blake’s trying very hard not to openly stare at my sink, but his gaze keeps going over. And then I remember and about want to die at my random tape repair, which admittedly is rather s
hit. I flush. Also, it’s unbearably hot in this kitchen, especially with Blake adding to the hotness factor.

  “Ah, it had a problem. Emergency repair,” I offer by way of explanation. And for an emergency repair with no end date in sight due to the finances issue, it’s holding up admirably. Seven layers of tape might do that. No leak would dare.

  “I see that.” Blake comes over to peer at the faucet. Experimentally, he turns the tap off and on.

  “At least it’s a mixer tap,” I offer in its defense.

  “A mixer tap?”

  I nod as he glances over at me, his expression now shifted to all plumbing business. “You know, where hot and cold water come out of the same faucet?”

  “Isn’t that normal?”

  I laugh. “No. Not in old buildings. I have separate taps for hot and cold water in the bathroom.”

  His eyes widen slightly at that. “Huh.”

  “Welcome to England,” I say wryly. “To be fair, those taps aren’t leaking. Admittedly, this was something cheap but I didn’t expect it to break so soon.”

  “Huh,” Blake says again.

  The kettle boils. I fill the teapot. And smother a yawn, worn from the heat of the day.

  “I can totally fix this for you,” Blake entreats, looking at me. “I mean, I’d love to fix this for you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m admittedly embarrassed about my repair job.”

  Blake shakes his head, coming close to give me a kiss, his mouth warm on mine, but it’s the best sort of heat, the heat that warms from the core out, the heat that transcends everything—especially dodgy plumbing repairs.

  “Mm,” he says happily when he straightens, both of us reeling. The fact Blake just kissed me in my tiny kitchen only makes the room spin more.

  Sheepish, I gaze at him, Blake-addled. He’s too bright to look at, all golden promise. And everything he says seems perfectly believable. And, if he didn’t care about me, he probably wouldn’t be here. “I’m sorry.”

  “For the kiss?” Blake teases me.

  “Oh no,” I say immediately. “I’m definitely not sorry about that. For acting like a jerk earlier.”