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They spoke every night, more often than not talking until the wee hours. Falling asleep together wasn’t uncommon. Nor was waking up to hear her giggling as she whispered, “We did it again.”
His ability to concentrate disappeared but he didn’t care. For the first time in years he actually smiled at random people he passed on the street. He picked up his cell already grinning when he knew it was Rory.
Instead of counting off the passing days with the billboards he needed to write, he filled them with work and Rory. Hell, they even had dinner a couple times like normal people. Nothing fancy, just relaxed meals at the diner near her place. Always around lots of other people to reduce temptation.
Not that it mattered. He wanted her when he was in a crowd just as much as when they were alone.
After each dinner he walked her home, holding her close to his side as if he expected her to disappear. But every night she was waiting on the other end of the line. She couldn’t know how much she gave him just by being there.
A couple weeks into their “thing”, whatever it was, he decided to try to express his growing feelings the way he did best. Nothing too over the top or schmaltzy. Just honest.
I dream of holding you at night. You’re so beautiful, so full of the laughter I’ve denied myself for so long. You make me realize everything I’ve been missing.
I intend to go slow with you, and make love to you the way you deserve. All night long. The best part will be feeling your breaths on my cheek rather than hearing them through the phone that makes you seem so far away.
Longing for you is the sweetest anticipation I’ve ever known.
Hitting send on his email made his chest tighten until he had to suck in a lungful of air. Christ, would she think he was a sap?
“She already knows you are, pal,” he said under his breath, pushing himself to his feet.
He got dressed and checked to make sure Junior had plenty of food and a clean litter box. Once the little purr machine had gotten his morning complement of kisses, he set the kitten back in his bed and left his apartment in a hurry, not wanting to stand around waiting for Rory’s reply. She was at work, like he should be. Reading his love-starved—ahem, lust-starved—notes wasn’t her number-one priority.
On the way he grabbed a cup of coffee and a blueberry bagel from the shop on the corner, eating both as he walked. He needed a little movement to take his mind off what he’d just done.
He’d never written something for someone other than his wife. Never wanted to. Yet every word he’d put down for Rory had made him smile, imagining her reaction as she read them.
“Nice of you to show up to work,” Billy called from the front lot of the shop, his blue-tipped mohawk glinting wetly in the morning sun. He never skimped on his gel, that was for sure.
“I wasn’t nice enough to grab you breakfast though.” Grinning, Sam tossed aside the last of his bagel for the birds and patted his brother on the arm as he continued inside.
The first thing he did, as always, was check the cash register. His shop was old school and had an old school cash register to go with it. He had the credit card scanner and sleek computer but the register with its faded smiley face stickers would always stay.
“I didn’t steal your dough, so chill.” Billy leaned his beefy forearms across the counter. “So what’s the deal, bro? You have something going on I don’t know about?”
Sam unzipped the bag of receipts and checked to see what business they’d done that morning so far. “Going on?”
“You’re smiling all the time. It’s sort of creepy. But the bags under your eyes have their own zip code.” Billy scratched his goatee. “You, ah, don’t have a woman, do ya?”
Sam managed not to snap his head up at the question. “Can’t a guy smile without getting the third degree?”
“You? No. Well, at least not after the past couple years. Before then, yeah. You used to smile a lot.” Billy grabbed Sam’s coffee and tipped back the lid to take a swig. “It’d be great if you did, you know. Because you deserve one.”
“Do I?” He kept sorting through receipts, thankful that his brother couldn’t hear the incessant throb in his chest.
“Hell, yeah. You’re a good guy, Sam. Wish you’d realize it one of these days.”
The pain between his shoulder blades came swiftly but left just as fast. He lifted his head and met Billy’s concerned brown gaze. “Workin’ on it,” he said softly, taking back his coffee.
Billy smiled, revealing the front tooth he’d chipped freshman year when he’d rammed into a stop sign on his bike. “Glad to hear it.”
Without saying anything more, Billy went back out front to polish the vintage El Camino he’d been stroking like a back-alley mistress before he’d come inside to hassle his older brother. Sam dove headfirst into the piles of paperwork that had accumulated, after turning off his cell phone. If he didn’t, he’d be looking for her call all damn day.
They broke for a lunch of subs and soda at two-thirty. Sprawled out around the table in the back, he, Billy and Shep, the college kid who worked afternoons, swapped stories about that morning’s customers. Business had been brisk, thank God, which meant the money would keep flowing in.
Money he would funnel a large portion of toward paying for billboards dedicated to a dead woman.
Sam frowned and set down the last of his sub, the chicken salad that had tasted so good a moment before now clogging his throat. He could save a lot of money if he stopped doing them. Or even cut back the frequency. But he wasn’t going to do that.
