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I wanted more time with him like I wanted to breathe clean air… like I wanted to splash bright colors across this stark house, like I wanted to run pell-mell down the beach with Bash hot on my heels, like I wanted to put Project Daisy Chain out into the world and watch others thrive.
“You ready?” he asked, pushing back from the table and raising his eyebrows.
“So ready,” I said, and in that moment, I meant it. If Bash wanted to fly me to the moon, I would go.
I pushed the inevitable goodbye out of my mind.
* * *
“Absolutely no. Not in my house,” Bash insisted. “Not now, not ever.”
I looked at the turquoise rotary telephone in my hands. “It’s a 1973 floral Empress. How could you not want this? It’s a steal,” I teased. “Do you have any idea what an incredible conversation piece this would be?”
I would say this for the Hamptons—even the items in the thrift store here were higher quality than most of the stuff I found in Linden. My fingers itched to buy some of these pieces, restore them to glory, and decorate some of the nearly empty bedrooms in Bash’s house. Unfortunately, the price tags on these items were higher, too, and it was hard to stop counting pennies, no matter how many of them Bash had.
“It’s ugly and hasn’t seen a dustcloth in the new millennium. I can’t even imagine how many smears of lipstick have touched the mouthpiece. Pick something else. Hell, anything else.”
I set the phone back on a shelf and patted its handset. “Someone will love you again one day,” I murmured. “I promise.”
“Weirdo,” Bash said with an affectionate grin. He pointed to a stack of colorful but inexpensive throw pillows. “What about these?”
“Pfft. Cheap reproductions,” I said in a low enough voice to not be overheard by the employee at the counter. “Move along.”
We came to a vintage velvet-and-silk throw in deep green, Kelly blue, and rich berry colors, which was being sold for a song—possibly because it didn’t coordinate with anyone’s minimalist decor. I couldn’t help my happy sigh. “We’re getting it. If you don’t like it, don’t tell me. Get it anyway and consider it my payment for sexual services rendered this week.”
Bash grabbed it and bundled it under his arm without even looking at the tag. “Done. What else?”
“You’re not going to argue about how many people’s skin cells have sloughed off onto it over the years?”
He made a face. “Are you trying to gross me out?”
I nudged his arm with my shoulder. “No. I’m just surprised at how quickly you agreed.”
“I’d do anything to put the look on your face you got when you saw this,” he said.
I wanted to tell him he already did. That I couldn’t remember the last time I’d let myself enjoy anything as much as I was enjoying this time with him, even though the unanswered messages from my parents made my phone feel like a lead brick in my pocket.
Instead, I leaned up to press a kiss against the edge of his mouth. “You’re an easy mark,” I whispered.
The sound of his laugh was enough to convince me what he’d said was true. If making me happy felt anything to him like the way making him laugh felt to me, I could understand his willingness.
And if it soothed some little place inside me to think that Bash might think of me every time he saw this throw on his couch, long after this week was over and I was back in Linden… well, that was my own business.
After selecting a pair of abstract paintings of colorful flowers from a local artist, we checked out and put our selections in the Land Rover Bash kept at his Hamptons house. We walked through a few more shops and made our first major purchase—an Art Deco walnut armoire with a hidden compartment that had made me catch my breath at how stunning it was… and then again once I saw the price tag. I tried to hurry Bash along, but it was too late. He’d already noticed my one-sided love affair with the piece and arranged with the clerk to have it sent to his house later in the week.
“You can tell me where it needs to go and what needs to be done with it then,” Bash insisted, strolling me out of the store and down the street. He paused in front of a quaint-looking cafe and inhaled the yeasty scent from inside. “Let’s get lunch.”
Bash is a grown man who can decide how he spends his money, I told myself repeatedly as we walked inside. The decor was charming—funky and colorful, with gleaming wood tables and sunshine streaming in the windows—exactly the sort of place I loved.Relax and enjoy this, Rowe.
But all my bold self-talk evaporated when the host handed us menus.
“Twenty-five dollars for a turkey sandwich?” I squeaked when I saw the prices. “Let’s go home.”
“It’s a panini.” Bash’s calm response was betrayed by his grin. “On rustic, artisan bread.”
“Does grilling the bread truly cost the extra twenty bucks? Seriously? Who the hell wants to live in a town that—” I stopped abruptly when I realized the server had arrived. An older woman with laugh lines next to her eyes asked if I preferred still or sparkling water. “Which one is free?” I asked.
Bash’s feet trapped mine under the table, and his soft laughter surrounded me, so infectious our server joined in.
