AllFreeNovel
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It’s funny. I don’t think I considered that a guy who was making vocal software was really struggling to find his own voice. I mean, I don’t wanna get all self-exploratory about it; that’s what all that time alone in the desert was for. And honestly, I’m not sure I got any closer to finding out anything about myself when I was alone. Not really. Not nearly as much as I feel like I’ll be able to discover with someone like Eden.
No. Not someone like Eden… Eden.
I remember thinking that she was four or five things rolled up into one sexy, silly, dorky, clever, funny, adorable, perfect package, and every day that we spend together just reveals more and more how true that is.
“Guess what!?” she says, hanging up her jacket and scarf and running to me, jumping in my arms, and giving me a kiss.
“What?” I ask, kissing her back.
“You know Svetlana?”
“Which one’s Svetlana?”
“The dry cleaner? The grouchy one?”
“Oh. Yeah. The one who said, ‘No, hole was there when you brought them in. Fifty-five-fifty.’ Sure. What about her?”
“We’re friends now!” she says, beaming.
“Wow. How’d you manage that?”
“I heard her on the phone, yelling at someone in Russian, and when she hung up she started crying.”
“No shit.”
“No shit. And after some cajoling she told me that some asshole is opening a chain dry-cleaning place across the street.”
“Oh. Where the ice-cream place used to be?”
It occurs to me that even though I haven’t really been here that long, I’ve now been here long enough to know where things ‘used to be.’
“Yep,” she says. “And she’s worried about them driving her out of business.
“That sucks.”
“I know!” she says.
“You seem exceedingly excited about it all. I mean, she’s rude, but…”
“No, silly!” she says, slapping my arm. “I’m not excited that she’s being run out of business. I’m excited because I’m going to stop it from happening!”
“You are?”
“I am!” She sticks out her jaw and unconsciously puts her hands on her hips, like Superwoman.
“Great! How!?”
“By doing what I do!”
“You’re going to mediate for her? Socially?”
“Yep! I’m gonna build her a campaign and, an online presence, and I’m going to capitalize on her individual… assets, as you would call them.”
“She has assets?”
“You haven’t noticed?”
“I only have eyes for you, ginger snap.”
She curtsies.
“Well,” she says, “she does. And I’m gonna help her attract business.”
“By using her assets?”
Eden nods.
“Um… How exactly do you plan to do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… It’s a dry cleaner. It’s not all that sexy.”
“Oh, my sweet, sweet Andrew…” She only ever calls me by my name when she’s upset or condescending. “…Everything can be made to be sexy if you know how.”
I nod. “And sex sells…”
“Sex does sell.”
She shakes her chest and my jeans start to feel snug.
“How much you charging her for this service?” I ask, sliding my arms around her waist.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. She’s a woman, on her own, struggling to make good things happen for herself in this world. I can’t charge her money for helping her.”
I smile. Big. And goofy, I have a feeling.
“What?” Eden asks.
I shake my head, “Nothing. Just… I love you.”
“I love you too,” she says, cocking her head and smiling back. “Oh,” she says, looking past my shoulder, “you got it hung.”
I turn to look with her.
“Yep. You like it there?”
The sculpture I bought for her is mounted on the wall facing the French doors that open to the patio that has an even more spectacular view of Pikes Peak than my old place had. (Although, to be honest, there is no unspectacular view of Pikes Peak.) We stare at the sculpture for a moment. Two bodies, bound together, growing together, as if borne from the rock itself. The gauzy, Autumn light streaming into the apartment spills over it in a rusty glow.
“Well,” she says, “I’m no art expert. But I love it there.”
I smile as I turn to face her and put my hands on her ass, “You’re no expert?” I ask.
She grins and shakes her head. “Not at art, anyway.”
“Yeah…? At what then?”
She shrugs and says, “I dunno. Knowing how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?”
“That’s a way more valuable skill,” I say, placing my mouth on hers as a shadow of lovers bound together in stone expands and spreads across the room.
We all start out as just a piece of rock.
And hopefully, eventually… our shape takes form and we become something.
Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get to become something together.
