Page 56 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Will you be okay?” Marina asks, rubbing the back of her neck where she’s been bent over, studying the diaries. For once she hadn’t rationed Nonna’s almond ring cookies.
I nod. “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.” She squeezes my hand on the desk. “Let’s pick this up again in the morning. Lift, Artie?” He checks the date he’s up to in the diary he’s reading and notes it down, then closes the journal and nods. They both look how I feel: subdued and more than ready to put this particular workday behindus.
I take my mum’s emptypaella pan back after I’ve finished up in the office, and on impulse I pull her into a hug. She isn’t much of a hugger, but she pats my back gamely because I’m clinging and then finally she holds me at arm’s length and stares at me intently.
“Is it the dog?”
I shake my head and half laugh, half cry.
“Is it a man?”
“No,” I say, swiping my cheeks with the heels of my palms. “It’s nothing like that. Just a hard couple of days in the office.” I could elaborate. I could say I spent yesterday morning locked in a dark cellar and then have been immersed in Agnes Scarborough’s grief ever since, but I don’t because I can’t face going over it all again now.
She looks for a moment as if she might be about to say, “I told you so,” but if she was, she thinks better ofit.
“No one said it would be easy,” she says, and then she places her hand briefly on my cheek. It’s enough to sootheme.
I amble back up thecobbled alley at the side of Blithe Spirits a few minutes later, warmed by the late-evening sunshine on my back and the comforting thought of a deep, hot bath. Lestat can’t get to me in the bathroom. I’m miles away, planning how best to manage the night so that I get some proper, contented baby sleep, and I don’t notice that there’s someone leaning against my office door until I’m almost standing in front of them. In front of him. In front of Fletcher Gunn.
“Cute dog,” he says.
I stall for a second, confused. If he is trying to compliment me, then he needs to go back to dating school because that was actually quite insulting. Then I remember Lestat, but he is a long way from anyone’s definition of cute and he’s not even here; I left himsnoozing in the office while I nipped round to return Mum’s dish. Then, finally, I remember the video clip I texted to Fletch, of the dog relieving himself on Fletch’s face.
“You seemed to require evidence that I have a dog so I sent you some.”
He’s doing that lounging-against-the-door-with-one-foot-up thing again. He must be fresh from work because he’s rocking that sexy, end-of-a-hard-day, ruling-the-world-with-the-rolled-up-shirt-sleeves look he excelsat.
“I got you something.” He pulls a lime-green pooper-scooper from behind his back and holds it out to me. “In case your dog gets the urge to shit on my face next time.”
Maybe it’s because I’ve had a traumatic day, but I’m as touched as I am annoyed. “You old romantic,” I say. “I’ll think of you every time I use it.”
He studies my face and frowns. “Have you been crying, Ghostbuster?”
“No.” I roll my eyes. “I just took part in the world onion-chopping competition. I won.”
“Congratulations. What’s the prize?”
I cast around for an answer. “A year’s supply of shallots. I’m going to pickle them.”
He laughs softly under his breath. “You’re a terrible liar,” he says.
“And you’re a terrible gift-giver,” I say, looking at the neon plastic scoop.
“I can be more romantic,” he offers, and I just look at him because I absolutely cannot read his expression. His eyes are shaded by the long, evening shadows cast by the building, but something about the sigh that leaves his lips tells me his day has probably been as trying as mine. I don’t move a muscle when he reaches out and strokes the back of his fingers along my jaw. I can’t move a muscle, because he’s rendered me temporarily catatonic with lust. As long as he stops there, it’ll be okay. I’ll recover the power of speech in a second and we can both forget this ever happened. I can hear carsdown on High Street in the distance and catch enticing wafts of take-away restaurants firing up for the evening, but back here Fletch and I are suspended in our own little world.
“I knew your skin would feel like that,” he says. “Too soft for all of your hard edges.”
I frown. “I don’t have hard edges.”
“Yes, you do. You’re all sharp edges and sarcasm and trouble, but your skin isn’t playing your games. It’s smooth and warm, and it likes me much better than the rest of you does.”
And he saysI’mtrouble? “My skin dislikes you every bit as much as the rest of me does,” I say, but it’s a lie. It’s not even a white lie for someone else’s benefit, certainly not for his. It’s an outright lie to myself. Not that it’s very effective, because he’s just opened his hand and cupped my jaw and my skin feels like it is actually sparkling. My skin isswooning.My head isn’t, and my heart isn’t, but my skin is experiencing a severe sensory malfunction. It’s flirting with Fletcher Gunn like a dog in heat.
“What about your mouth, Bittersweet?” he says.
Jesus, I think I’ve just stepped closer to him. I look down at my feet in alarm and issue them a direct order: Fall back, you fools! Fall back!
