Be What Love Is

by Malouff, Ellie

  “Yeah, I think so. I’ve never really had stew before or lamb for that matter. I’m more of a fish tacos and Corona girl.”

  I lift the bottle of Merlot that’s been breathing on the table and pour some in her glass. “It’s not quite Corona, but…”

  She laughs so naturally and gives me a grateful smile before lifting the glass to her lips.

  “Mmm…good stuff.”

  “Trevor and Anna were connoisseurs. There’s a pretty decent wine cellar here.”

  She lifts her glass, about to take another drink, when I raise mine and say, “Cheers.”

  She flashes me a silly grin, and her eyes widen as we clink glasses. “Cheers,” she says and takes another big gulp while looking away.

  It’s quiet between us as we eat, but I find myself watching her more times than not. She’s a messy eater, and for some reason, I find that charming. Maybe it’s because I’ve been around high society most of my life, and I haven’t spent much time with women like her since I was in Australia. After we’re done, she shakes off the breadcrumbs from her top and finishes off the bottle of wine without shame.

  Mrs. McHenry takes our dishes away and promises some sticky toffee pudding, which she reminds Cara was also one of her favorites.

  As we wait, I politely smile at Cara. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, I suspect to suppress her own smile. It’s becoming a familiar dance between us. I shake myself into seriousness because it’s time to make a plan about the house, so I take a huge stab at the silence. “So, Cara, I’m glad we have this opportunity to talk.”

  Her eyes flick back over to me. “Me too.”

  “I thought we could develop a plan for how to approach the house.”

  “Oh, yeah. Good idea,” she says, but doesn’t sound convincing. “Well, like I said, I’d like to sort everything out. I guess, room-by-room.”

  “I really wish there was a more efficient way to do this. I’d like to get back to London, sooner than later.”

  “Well, you could always just let me do it. I’ve got time. If you tell me what you want to keep, I’ll set it aside for you,” she offers.

  “Unfortunately that won’t work for me. No offense, but I think it would be best if we were able to agree on what went to auction.” She frowns, ready to pounce on what I’ve said but I don’t let her. “I’m looking out for both us here. Plus, I’m sure you have a life to get back to as well. We can split up the work where it makes sense to do so.”

  She shrugs her shoulders at that last bit, which makes me wonder what kind of life she has back home. So far, I know that she’s getting a masters degree and works in a coffee shop, that’s it. Does she have a boyfriend that’s missing her? Surely someone so gorgeous has a man waiting for her. Out of nowhere, there’s a twinge in my stomach as I imagine that.

  “Fair enough, but I don’t know how to make it go faster,” she admits.

  We pause on that note as Mrs. McHenry comes back to the dining room to serve us the sticky toffee pudding.

  Right on the first bite, it all comes back to Cara. She moans in a profoundly satisfying way and then smiles with her mouth closed. It’s completely adorable and if I’m completely honest, a little erotic. She carries on that way as she barrels through her pudding and I sit by, taking small bites and getting a hell of a kick out of it. She feels no shame whatsoever of her enjoyment of the sweet treat. I hand the rest of mine over to her. She’s not like most women I encounter, oh no. She doesn’t pretend for a second that she couldn’t possibly eat all of her dessert and the rest of mine. She grabs it and dives in.

  “So which room should we start in?” she asks between bites.

  “How about their bedroom?”

  She becomes serious at my suggestion, maybe even a touch sad. After a beat, she says, “So we’ll do his bedroom and then hers?”

  I squint in her direction. “They didn’t keep separate bedrooms, Cara. They shared a room.”

  “Oh,” she simply says. “My grandparents slept in separate rooms. It’s hard to imagine my grandfather in a traditional loving relationship.”

  “Trevor and Anna were very happy together,” I reveal to her, knowing full well that this was a touchy topic for her family. I’ve heard the story.

  She blinks a few times at that and pushes back from the table. I stand up automatically in response. She picks up the dessert dishes.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’m not used to being waited on,” she says quickly. There’s some ice in her tone.

  Mrs. McHenry rushes into the dining room. “Please Miss Montgomery, let me do that.” She takes the dishes from her hands and places them on a tray. “Can I get you some more coffee?”

  Cara shakes her head, an animated no. “No, I’m fine. Thank you for dinner.”

  “Yes, thank you,” I chime in.

  Mrs. McHenry flits out of the dining room as quickly as she came in, leaving us facing each other.

  “I hope I didn’t upset you,” I start.

  Cara’s looking off to the side. “You didn’t.”

  “So their bedroom then?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she says, and her green eyes meet mine once again.

  “Brilliant.”

  “Well, I think I’m going to take a shower and get ready for bed.”

  My imagination goes into overdrive as I recall the night I stumbled upon her in the towel. I’m reasonably sure I’ll never get over that image of her, barely covered and wet to the touch. I lick my lips and reply, “All right. I’ll see you in the morning when we get started.”

  She’s staring at my mouth as she says, “Goodnight.” Then heads off toward the bedrooms.

  “Goodnight, Cara,” I say softer than expected and she looks back at me. I smile at her, surprised that I’m unable to resist my lips from turning up. I’m even more surprised when she smiles back.

  Cara

  “Little ballerina,” my grandfather whispers, luring me awake. I can’t open my eyes, but I have a feeling I should. Suddenly, my window bursts open and a gust of wind and rain blows the sheet off my body. I spring out of bed, terrified. I dash out of the bedroom and toward the nearest light source, which comes from beneath Reid’s bedroom door. I knock frantically.

  Loud stomping moves across the room, and he swings the door wide open. “My god, Cara. Are you all right?”

  I can’t answer through the sobbing. I rush into the light, right past him and take deep breaths. Before I know it, he’s wrapping his arms around me and whispering, “What happened?” over and over again. His warmth comforts me as does his scent. He smells soapy and fresh. Alive.

  “I think this place is haunted.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  I pull out of his arms and notice for the first time that he isn’t wearing a shirt, just pajama bottoms that hang loosely from his hips, like the first night we met. Much to my embarrassment, my eyes travel all the way down his well-sculpted torso, from his broad shoulders and firm pecs that have the perfect smattering of hair, over his defined abs, and down his happy trail. Yes, he has a trail of happiness, and I’m definitely staring at it.

  He shakes me a bit. “Cara?”

  “The window burst open,” I tell him and shiver from the memory.

  “Did you forget to lock it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I think it was my grandfather…” I trail off.

  “It was the storm, I promise. These windows are old.” He sits me down on his bed and then darts out of the room, I suspect to check things out and shut the window. When he returns, he sits beside me.

  “There was something else.” I try to remember why I got so scared.

  “What else?” he asks quietly and then gently squeezes my hands, making my anxiety melt away.

  “I think I heard my name, or it was the nickname he had for me.”

  “What nickname?”

  Embarrassment replaces any remaining fear. It had to have been a dream. I’m starting to come out
of it, and realize where I am and what’s happening. I also realize that I’m only wearing a t-shirt and panties. I try to roll with it, but I can’t help pull my hands out of his grasp and yank my t-shirt down over my thighs.

  It doesn’t go unnoticed. He stands up and turns away, then clears his throat. I check out his back, which is as well sculpted as his chest. The first night we bumped into each is such a blur, so I’m a little surprised at how muscular he is, but I’m even more surprised at the tattoo he has on his shoulder. I did not notice that before. It’s an angular lion standing on its back legs and roaring with sharp claws. A monogram of K-L-G is weaved between flames around it, all in black. A tattoo doesn’t fit his personality in the slightest. How did that come to be?

  Climbing off his big bed, I tell him, “It was just a dream, I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “It’s okay, I wasn’t sleeping,” he says as he slips on a t-shirt, much to my disappointment. “I was working.”

  “This late?” I ask as I head toward his door.

  He looks over his shoulder at me and nods, and then quite clearly flexes his jaw. Time to go. I’m sorry I interrupted his work and cried in front of him again. Will I ever stop crying in front of this guy?

  “Goodnight, Reid,” I murmur.

  “Cara, wait,” he says and takes a few steps toward me. His eyes meet mine before he puts his hand on my shoulder and runs it down my arm. Warm tingles glide up my spine. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I look away and shake my head. “Yeah, totally.”

  “Do you want me to walk you to your room?”

  “No,” I jump in, too embarrassed as it is. “I’ve got it.”

  He takes a step back and studies me for a moment, before crossing his arms. “Goodnight, Cara,” he says as softly as he did in the dining room.

  I turn to go, but still feel his eyes on me until I’m out of his sight. Back in my room, I turn on the light and shut the door. I crawl back into bed and pull the covers up to my ears.

  My eyes wander from my ballerina painting over to the wall I share with Reid. I replay our moment over and over again, rubbing my hands together, trying to erase the feeling of his hands holding mine, but it’s impossible. I feel him, I smell him, and I see in my dreams all night long.

  Chapter Six

  Strike a Match

  Cara

  Reid and I are standing in the middle of Trevor and Anna’s bedroom. We’ve each got a sheet of colored dot stickers, a notebook, labels, and a permanent marker. This was his idea. Clearly, I’m dealing with someone who registers on the Type A end of the spectrum.

  “So where do we start?” I ask.

  He stares blankly and shakes his head. “This is an impossible task.”

  Deep down I agree with him, but I’m not going to admit it. “Nah, it’s going to be fine.”

  I peek in the attached dressing room. It’s like a small boutique for old stuffy rich people.

  Reid pokes his head in and declares, “We shouldn’t even bother since all of this can be donated. Although we should auction her handbags, those are quite valuable.”

  He leaves me to it, goes to Anna’s vanity, and starts shuffling through the drawers.

  Not really knowing where to begin with the closet, I take a seat on the round changing couch and look at the handbags. While I don’t really like thinking of things in monetary value, Reid has a point. She had expensive taste and a bit of an obsession with them. The idea that my grandfather may have bought them for her makes me a little queasy as if he was buying tokens for a wanton mistress. I bite on my lips and shake it off because those are words that my mom would use.

  Since my mind is going in the wrong direction, I get up and take action by putting red dots on all the bags, indicating that they were meant for auction and leave the rest behind since it will be donated as a whole.

  I find Reid going through Anna’s jewelry box. Of course. No wonder he’s starting there first. He wants the biggest bang for his buck. I try to keep my eye rolling to a minimum and go over to one of the nightstands.

  The first one I encounter is clearly Anna’s. It’s filled with feminine things like vanilla hand lotion and a pink satin eye mask. God, this is weird. I close the drawer and go over to the other one, feeling better about handling my grandfather’s things instead of hers.

  His nightstand is a disaster. I take out each item, piece by piece. It’s a hodgepodge of things like indigestion medicine, finished Sudoku puzzles, tattered bookmarks, and loose change.

  When I get to the back of the drawer, I find some folded pieces of paper, tucked tightly together. I pull them out and sit down on the bed, before opening them up. Without much thought, I unfold the first one and am shocked. “Oh my God,” I blurt out.

  “What?” Reid asks and comes over to where I’m sitting.

  I show him the piece of paper. He reads it carefully, trying to understand why a printed out article about a high school play would generate such a dramatic response. Then he figures it out. “Is that you?” he asks and points at the picture of me dressed in a Victorian gown.

  “Yeah, I was in this play, and they covered it in the newspaper. I can’t believe he ever saw this.” I shake my head in disbelief.

  A light smile lifts from the corner of his lips. “And what about the rest of these?” he asks, picking up the next folded piece of paper and handing it to me.

  It’s another article, about a literature show I helped put on for elementary school kids. I’m quoted in the article. I hand it over to Reid and open the next one, which is a piece I wrote for the English department’s literary magazine.

  “Did you know he was doing this?” I ask.

  “Not at all.”

  I look at the pages that are spread across the bed and ask a question I’ve been dying to know the answer. “Did he ever talk about me?”

  Reid sits down on the bed and starts to rub his chin.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” I shrug, trying to play off the hurt that causes me.

  “Well, I knew that you and your mother lived in California,” he offers.

  “So you pretty much knew that I existed on planet earth,” I joke.

  We laugh a little, and our eyes meet for the first time since last night’s awkward incident in his bedroom. I look away as he apologizes. “I’m sorry, he didn’t talk about it much. And when he would, he would quickly stop. I think it was a sore spot, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. It was for us too.”

  I open the last piece of paper, a recent newspaper clipping. This one doesn’t have anything to do with me. The headline reads, Turning a Hobby into a Business. It profiles a man named Gavin Melville, whose pictured standing next to a bicycle shop.

  “Did my grandfather have a thing for bikes?”

  “Pardon?” Reid asks, and I hand him the article. He reads it over and shakes his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “I can totally picture him riding a bike. He was such a kid at heart.”

  Reid’s brows arch up as he smiles. “That’s odd to hear. He was always so proper and professional. Although he did have a soft spot for Aunt Anna, of course.”

  His words are like a punch to the gut. It’s instinct after years and years of conditioning that what they did was wrong. I get off the bed and turn my back to him, then go back to working on the nightstand.

  “It upsets you to hear about their relationship, doesn’t it?”

  “Not at all.” I know it doesn’t sound convincing.

  Reid clears his throat and stands up too. I sense him behind me, staring at the back of my head.

  “They loved each other very much.”

  I grab a bag and start throwing away the trash I pulled out from the drawer.

  He goes on. “She was a good person. A great person.”

  “I believe you,” I say, and that is true to some extent. At the end of the day, Anna doesn’t bother me that much. It’s the idea that my grandfather was unfaithful. My mom’s voice is in the
back of my head, using all the worst words about them. She would lose her mind if she knew I was in their shared bedroom, going through their stuff, listening to Anna’s nephew talk about their love for one another.

  “Why did your mother dislike her so much?” he asks, getting right to the heart of the matter.

  I turn and face him, shocked that he would go there. He crosses his arms as he waits for an answer. Doesn’t he get it? Do I really have to talk about their affair? He has to understand how that hurt my mom. So I sum it up in one word. “Timing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well my grandmother was sick and dying, and my grandfather was stepping out with your aunt.”

  “That’s what you think, huh?” he snips and takes a step closer to me.

  I meet his step with my own. “That’s what I know,” I answer in a deep growl. My temperature is rising as if someone turned up the heat on this June day.

  He steps even closer, our bodies are only a foot apart. I meet his narrow and tense blue eyes. “So you think my aunt was a home wrecking slut?”

  “Hey, you said it,” I reply and grit my teeth. I’m ready for a fight.

  I’m not sure I actually believe that about her, but he is so damn maddening that I can’t help myself.

  His hands turn to fists as he holds his breath. I’m not sure what is going to happen next. I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t. His face is angled down toward mine, and I lift up mine on instinct. Our lips are only a few inches apart. If we connected, it would be like striking a match. Just another step forward and we would burn this whole house down.

  Finally, he exhales and hisses, “You don’t know anything.” He storms out of the bedroom, leaving me rattled and sweating.

  * * *

  The submit button on the Fitzwilliam Library internship application is just a tiny little thing. My mouse eclipses it almost entirely. Seems small for taking such a giant leap. I hesitate to click it, opting to read through my submission one more time. After all, when I started working on this, I was still so hot-headed from my fight with Reid. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to grab my laptop, high tail it to the bench by the carriage house and work on my application. At least not in this state, because if I’m honest, I’m still really pissed at him for getting in my face like that.