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“Nonsense,” Helen said.
And that settled that.
Helen giggled as they crept through the upstairs hall.
Their room had a Jack-and-Jill bathroom that they shared with the other guest room, Kelly’s room, but Kelly had gone out with friends after dinner and had yet to return.
“You go first,” Helen urged.
Annie didn’t want to fight, so she grabbed her toiletry bag and locked herself into the little bathroom, quickly changing into flannel pajama pants and a white T-shirt, then brushing her teeth. She knew she should wash her face but didn’t have it in her. Buzzed Annie was even less responsible than sober Annie.
Helen was already in gray sweatpants and a black tank top when Annie came back into the room. One of the tank top straps was twisted in the back. Annie reached out, not waiting for consent, and adjusted the strip of fabric.
“Thanks,” Helen said and took her turn in the bathroom. She wasn’t long. Annie heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on and off a few times. While she waited, she busied herself with turning on the nightstand lamp and turning off the bright overhead light. Pulling the decorative pillows off the bed and tossing them to the floor. Turning the bed cover down.
“Left or right?” Helen said.
Annie spun around. She hadn’t heard Helen come back in the room. Her cheeks were still flushed, but her face was damp and clean. She’d pulled her dark hair up with a scrunchie. Annie was suddenly self-conscious about her own smudged eyeliner and limp hair.
“What?” she asked.
“What side of the bed do you prefer?”
“I went from a cot to a twin,” Annie said. “Side hasn’t really been an option lately.”
Helen laughed and pointed to the side Annie was standing by. “You.” Then she pointed to the opposite side. “Me.”
“Sold.” Annie sat on the edge and looked around the little room. “I’m tired, but I don’t know how sleepy I am.”
“You’ll be sleepy when you have to wake up at sixa.m. to chop onions,” Helen said with a grin. “You’ll be sorry.”
“You’re the one who got yourself suckered into cooking practically the whole meal.” Annie slid her legs under the blankets. But she didn’t recline, just sat up against the headboard. Helen mirrored her pose. With her hair up and her face clean, she looked younger than her nearly forty years, but Annie could see little lines at the edge of her eyes and at the top of her lips.Laugh lines, her mom called them. Annie couldn’t take her eyes off them. In the low lamplight, they just made Helen more attractive.
It had been a mistake to bring her.
“I love cooking. I find it soothing and satisfying.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Helen said, her eyes half closing. “There’s something about creating a complex meal out of simple parts. I can’t paint, and I’m not much of a writer, but I feel like an artist when I make an elaborate meal. Especially if I get to watch people enjoy it.”
“I’ve never thought of it like that,” Annie said. “Well, I know Lori’s going to be grateful.”
“Thank you, for bringing me here. I like your friends, and I get to have a holiday when I expected to be alone.”
“It’s not a big deal—”
“Thank you for moving into my garage. Will you stay? I don’t want you to move out.”
Annie realized that Helen was still buzzed, that they both were, but she nodded. “Yeah. Of course. Anything. I’ll do anything you want, Helen.”
And then Helen leaned in and put her arms around Annie in an awkward hug. Annie tilted her face, closing the gap, pressing her warm, slightly numb lips against the stretch of pale skin betweenHelen’s chin and ear, against those little lines that undid her. Helen’s heart beat a rhythm against Annie’s lips.
She’d ignored her feelings the first time she’d met Helen, who was struggling with a colicky baby, desperate to hold on to a job she couldn’t afford to lose. She’d ignored them the first time she and Helen went shopping for furniture, when they’d eaten tacos in that hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. She’d ignored them when Helen cried and when she laughed and anytime she sat across from her, their knees brushing, so that Annie could tell her what had gone wrong that day.
She’d ignored her feelings, and she saw Helen ignoring them too, talking to Sal, watching Annie come and go at all hours. She’d ignored the expression of serenity that washed over Helen’s face whenever she looked at Annie holding the baby or talking to Ashley or helping Kevin with his subtraction homework.
But Annie couldn’t ignore her feelings for Helen anymore.
