to me or not. Either way, I won’t regret what just happened, but if you want a relationship, you’ll have to start believing me. We’ll take it slow. You can build up your trust. This is your game now, kitten. You can play it however you want to. If you want to. ‘Cause it’s not looking too promising at the moment.”
He gave my pajamas the once over, grinned, slipped on his shirt and opened the door. He leaned over and brushed my lips with a gentle kiss. It was just enough to make me crave him even more.
I watched Leo amble down the stairs before I slipped into my marshmallow-soft bed, covered my head with my white down blanket and told myself not to think of the man or I’d never fall asleep. The man was a continual menace to my otherwise comfortable life. And what made it even worse, he was hiding something from me about Dickey.
What was that all about?
Normally, I had no problem coping with my temporary celibacy and lack of alcohol. I’d come to look at it as a phase I was going through. That one day I would be enjoying men and wine again only in a sane way. At least that’s what my last shrink said. For some reason, I wasn’t seeing the vision in my future.
Especially after tonight.
The man’s lack of an answer to my question just proved that I was incapable of getting the truth out of him. The very fact that I didn’t push him on it was due to my complete lack of courage when it came to Leo. But why would he not answer me? What was he hiding? In the past, he would toss me some elaborate lie, but this time he said nothing. That was clearly more disturbing considering I was asking about a missing murder victim.
I turned on my side, fluffed my pillow, shifted my legs to a more comfortable fetal position, stared through my curtainless window at the night sky filled with stars, and forced myself to think of my favorite sleep inducer—uses for olive oil:
It preserves and cleans cutting boards. It’s great to push back cuticles, and it softens the rough spots on your feet. It’s a great suntan oil. It can sooth my chapped lips. A few drops will suffocate a tick. It works as a mosquito repellant, not to mention the great effect it has on dry skin in general. Olive oil has been known to lower blood pressure. It decreases blood sugar levels, helps prevent calcium loss and promotes cellular growth. Olive oil sooths sunburn pain, or is that vinegar? Anyway, it will help with a bee sting, and it will relieve my sore throat when I warm it and . . .
I was asleep before I could think of cleaning solutions.
I kept hearing a bird chirping off in the distance. Wait, not a bird exactly, more like a cat with laryngitis. No, it was definitely a bird. A sick bird. I opened my eyes a little and realized morning had erupted, and for the first time in months, I had slept right through the night.
Slowly the bird sound became stronger, along with a faint scent of blackberries. I tilted my head to get a better whiff, but the scent had been so faint that I couldn’t really smell it anymore.
As my mind began to clear out of the night’s fog, making love to Leo in the shower flashed up on my memory screen. I smiled and snuggled down under the covers while facing the window, realizing my lover was in bed with me. I rolled over to give him a luscious wake-up kiss when Lisa jumped up and dashed out of my bed. I moved away, suddenly remembering that Leo never crawled in bed with me, Lisa had, and thank God I was wearing my best flannel pajamas. I didn’t remember exactly how I ended up in my pajamas, but that was beside the point.
The bird I’d heard was Lisa’s now-working miracle phone.
“Hello,” she cooed into the phone, sensual excitement skipping off of each syllable. I figured whoever was on the other end of the call must be thinking that Lisa was thrilled to hear from them. Little did they know she was simply thrilled that her phone seemed to be working, despite its oil bath.
She giggled, a high-pitched girly giggle. What was that all about? Was a working phone that exciting to her?
She whispered something I didn’t catch, giggled