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“How fucking long does it take to make a couple of lobster dinners? No one else takes as long as them. Do they have to go out and catch the lobsters and fucking butcher them?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like steak or chicken, where they’re already dead. There’s a tank of lobsters and when you call, they kill them to make you your meal.”
He took a drink of his gin and tonic and nodded, his eyes clouding over like he was remembering some distant memory. “That’s right, isn’t it? That’s really fucking sad.”
“Maybe if I call them back right now we can still save the lobsters,” Abby suggested.
He ignored this. “If it wasn’t meth heads it was coke heads, Sugartitties. Coke heads’ll leave it cleaner than it was when they showed up. I was a coke head in the eighties and I didn’t even need a housekeeper back then.”
“I don’t know, Randall. And how’d they get in? There was no sign of anything broken. And what kind of burglar makes toast?” As soon as she said it, Abby got a funny feeling like she might want to ask Charlie about all of this. She instantly wished she’d never said a word to Randall.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I still haven’t set foot in the place and I don’t intend to. I’ll give Enid Roseman a call tomorrow and tell her to get it put back on the market. She’s got a whole team. They’ll clean it from top to bottom, mow the grass. You won’t have any excuse to go out there again.”
“But I love it! And I just got it all decorated.”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed. You’ve spent forty-five thousand dollars on furniture in the past two months.”
“We spend that on stuff for this house all the time.”
“No we don’t.”
“That painting in the hall was fifty-eight thousand dollars!”
“That’s different. That’s art. It’s an investment. Get me another drink.”
Abby took his glass and went inside. She wasn’t sure why she felt so disappointed. The cottage had never had any real purpose aside from being a way to squirrel away money. It had served its purpose better than she’d ever dreamed. Easy come, easy go.
She fixed him his drink and brought it to him just in time to see the truck shaped like a giant lobster chugging up their driveway. Randall’s face lit up. “Doesn’t that truck make you feel like a little kid again?” he asked.
“I don’t like to think about being a kid,” Abby said.
“They’re going to the front door. How many fucking times do I have to tell them to bring it out here to the pool? Go catch them before they think we’re not home,” he said, holding out his hand to retrieve his drink from her. “And while you’re at it, pull your dress closed better than that. I can see your skin and it’s green. It’s disgusting.”
Chapter 31
“Why didn’t we ever think of this before?” Abby gasped.
“Good question. Maybe because I walk most of my route. Plus, it’s probably a federal offense. Not that that would stop me.”
Charlie and Abby were having sex in the back of his mail truck. He’d attempted to park it in a small patch of shade, but it was still well over a hundred degrees inside. Sweat was running down both their faces. Charlie was sitting on a bag of mail and Abby was on his lap. It was so much more comfortable than the floor where they’d started. She was a little concerned about how the mail truck might look to people passing by, but Charlie didn’t seem worried about it.
Her bruises were finally healed. She’d somehow avoided sex with Charlie that whole time. Now that it was finally happening again, it felt like heaven. Better than she even remembered. She started to groan and they came together, clinging to each other after it was over, panting in a slippery hug. He kissed her salty lips.
“Do you want to run away with me?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m going to pass out,” she said. Charlie picked up a piece of mail and fanned her with it.
“So do you?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Just maybe?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll take that, if it’s the best you can do.”
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, you weren’t at the cabin, were you?”
