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Her second-floor apartment was small but homey. Warm colors, pictures hung on the walls, soft, comfortable looking furniture, and not too much clutter. It looked lived in and loved.
The air conditioning kicked on, sending a blast of cold air into the room. Skin moist with perspiration prickled, sending tingles through his body. Goosebumps rose on his arms.
A quick glance at Maeve’s chest told him the temperature change affected her too; her nipples pert and hard beneath her blouse.
As she headed off to change, AJ stood in her kitchen, taking in the small but immaculate space. Every appliance was in its place, and the counters were clean. The only thing out of place was the recipe book near the stove. He leaned over it, opening it where a slip of paper separated the pages.
The pages in the cookbook featured two recipes for fudge cookies and caramel chip cookies. But the slip of paper was a handwritten recipe.
For triple chocolate chip cookies.
“Sorry for taking so long.” Maeve’s voice made him jerk, dropping his hand so the book slammed shut. Sidling into the room—which was now much too small with her there with him—Maeve opened the fridge, looked inside, then closed it. Turning to him, her cheeks flushed, she said, “I don’t have any beer, but I do have some vodka Sally left here the last time she came over. Actually, she invited herself over because Sly was working late and she was bored, and she brought their liquor cabinet with her. All that’s left is the vodka.”
Forcing himself to move his feet, he slid to the other side of the peninsula separating the kitchen space from a small breakfast nook that abutted the open living room space.
“Vodka’s fine.” One drink, then he was out. He needed to put more space between them.
She pulled a mug from a cupboard then opened the freezer for the vodka, and turned back to him.
He stared at the mug, confused.
She giggled. “Yeah…I don’t have shot glasses, so one of my many mugs will just have to do.”
Many? “How many do you have?”
Her flush deepened and she shrugged. “Well, by my last count…seventy.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. My addiction to mugs is out of control. I see one that tickles my fancy and I buy it. I know there’s no way I can use them all, but they make me happy, so what’s the harm?”
…out of control mug collection. Where had he heard that? It was just there, on the tip of his brain. He couldn’t quite grab hold of it.
“Here,” Maeve said, thrusting a coffee mug into his hands. On the mug was the image of a red pen dripping blood with the words, “Kill Your Darlings,” beneath it.
AJ held it up, turning to her with raised eyebrows.
She snickered. “That’s one I got from my best friend, Callie. We went to community college together, and we edited and proofread each other’s class projects. She said I was a literary serial killer because, when I was done editing her work using my trusty red ink pen, it looked like I murdered it. That quote is from late, great William Faulkner. He says that we should never be afraid to ‘kill our darlings’ or remove unnecessary words.”
Mug of vodka in hand, AJ sat on the loveseat, the cushion beneath him sinking in. Maeve sat on the seat next to him, turning her body until her knee brushed against his. She leaned back and lifted her own mug of vodka to her lips.
The silence in the apartment was heavy with expectation.
Of what, though?
Say something!“Where’d you go to community college?”
She smiled, her face brightening in a way he’d never seen before.
Hard to see much of anything about her when you’ve spent the last five months comparing her to a small, unobtrusive rodent. Not even bothering to peek over the computer screen and meet her gaze.
And he’d missed out on the bluest eyes he’d ever seen.
“Ocala. It’s where I met Callie. She was there because she’d gotten pregnant right after high school and she couldn’t attend Florida State as she’d planned. I was scared shitless because I was on my own for the first time, and I was never really good at making friends. It was the first morning of my business admin class, and she came right in, sat down next to me, and spent the whole class period trying to keep her eyes open. After class, she admitted that she’d been up all night because her daughter was teething. I felt bad for her, so I gave her my notes. The next day, she brought me a coffee in a travel mug that said, ‘Sorry. I’m cranky cuz I missed my nap.’ We’ve been friends ever since.”
“The first in your mug collection?”
“No. I’d already been two years deep by then. I still have that travel mug, though. Somewhere.”
