Page 14 of Frosted and Sliced

“New roof?” she said, jolting so the elastic she was testing snapped back and stung her hand.

“Surely you realize that you need a new roof, and it’s going to require a tear off, along with new flashing and, as I said, the gutters.”

“Maybe you could stop looking for things that need fixed.”

He tipped his head, studying her. “I thought I’m supposed to fix things, while I’m here.”

“Fixable things, like light bulbs that need replaced. Not gigantic things I don’t want to know about.”

“Not knowing things won’t make them go away,” he said.

“Wanna bet?” she returned. “Denial is a system that has served me well for nearly three decades.”

“Obviously you had the inn inspected, before you bought it,” he said.

She remained resolutely silent.

“Georgette, tell me you had the inn inspected.”

She tossed aside the sheet. “It’s a two-hundred-year-old building, Burke. It was never going to be good news. What did you expect them to say? That it’s magically getting younger and more solid? I knew it was a hovel when I bought it. I’m doing the best I can here.” She sniffled.

“You’recrying? You cannot cry.” He jutted an accusing finger at her.

“Watch me, or better yet don’t. Leave me to cry while rubble rains down around me. I’ll be like Mrs. Havisham.”

“You’re not wearing a wedding dress,” he pointed out.

“Oh, that’s right, because even the crazy old spinster from the Dickens novel had that going for her. Me, I get all the perks ofbeing unwanted, without the cool dress.” She swiped her hand over her nose.

“You need to calm down,” he said.

“Being told to calm down has never worked in the history of humanity, but I admire your optimism for trying.” She sniffed again, feeling strangely unembarrassed that she was crying and leaking in front of him. There was something about his absolute insanity that put her at ease. Who cared that she was coming off like a love-starved lunatic? She still wasn’t as crazy as the hobo living in her attic.

“Look, I wasn’t kidding about being handy, I actually am, and I can handle most things. Except tears, I cannot handle tears. So if you’d only stop crying, we could make a list of things that need done.”

Indeed, he looked almost supernaturally agitated. She gave a juddering breath and tried to stop crying, but it was hard. By nature, Georgette wasn’t a big cryer. She was a handle it and get it done type person. The downside was that when she did cry, it tended to release a lot of pent up fear, sadness, and disappointment. Some of it she’d been storing since her parents died, because Brody wasn’t good with tears, either.

“Should I touch you?” Burke asked.

Georgette backed up so fast, she fell over backwards. “What?” she asked, putting up a hand to ward him away.

“Like a, you know, a hug or something?” Never in the history of mankind had someone been as uncomfortable as Burke was now. She was fairly certain he’d rather field a prostate exam than hug her, so that made it sort of sweet that he offered. And loads better than what she first thought he meant. Not for nothing did she have a cop who was a brother. He’d warned her about depraved men who would love nothing better than to prey on a woman who couldn’t hear them approach.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. There weren’t a lot of huggers in her life. Certainly not Brody. One of her best friends from culinary school had been a hugger. Carol had also been Brody’s girlfriend for a while, but then they broke up and now she was married to someone else. Georgette hadn’t seen her in too long, and there was a weird, broken space between them that she’d managed to stuff down and avoid dealing with, but now that the well was open, it was all pouring out. She rested her head on her knees and cried in earnest, for Carol, for her dumpy inn, for her lonely heart, for her parents, for everything.

Burke sidled closer, slowly, so as not to spook her, and eased an arm around her shoulders. He was warm and solid and large and his overtly masculine smell was strangely comforting. Georgette gave in to temptation and leaned closer, resting her head on his impressive pec as the tears came to a natural end.

“Huh, that actually worked,” he murmured.

“Don’t get used to it, I’m not a cryer,” she warned.

“It’s probably okay, if you do it sometimes. I feel like I’ve passed some sort of test here and, in the future, will have my bases covered and know better how to handle it.”

“Or, and hear me out, you could try not making me cry in the first place,” Georgette suggested.

“No, that doesn’t sound like me,” he said. “But the cleanup’s not horrible, so I have little incentive to change my behavior.”

Once again his blatant insanity was vaguely appealing for the comfort it allowed her. With most people, Georgette was baffled. Not being able to hear well had left her out of a lot of inside jokes and subtle nuance. People didn’t realize how much they expressed through tone. Georgette could hear words, but not tone, not the subtle shifts that let her know when someone was teasing or angry or mocking. When she could, she tried to decipher clues using expressions, but there were a surprising number of people who remained expressionless while theytalked, like robots. As a result, she tended toward plainspoken people who said what they meant and meant what they said. Burke seemed disastrous at talking to people, but at least he was honest about it. She much preferred that than other people she knew, who were nice to her face but secretly talked about her or made fun of her behind her back.

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