her waist as he kissed her with the bursting passions of a madman. She stumbled back, and he took another step forward. He felt her chest rising and falling like some damn accordion. Her big eyes were wild, dancing… “Do you have interest in me, Lauren? Tell the truth. A simple yes or no will do. That’ll put this to rest. I promise.”
She hesitated long and hard, as if she wasn’t sure what to say. Perhaps she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, or she was fighting her desires, yet never wishing to admit such.
“Yes,” she said at last.
“Then that settles it. I’m taking you to breakfast tomorrow at one of my favorite places. Be prepared to get up early. I’ll meet you there at seven A.M. on the dot. Now, that box of books there is on the house.” He pointed to it. “Just like you’d done for me with the book in your bookstore. I don’t care about what titles are in there, so no need to give me a receipt or nothing like that. Consider it a donation.”
“That’s mighty generous of you. I can assure you that many of them are worth hundreds of dollars. I had no idea Benjamin was a book collector.”
He shrugged.
“Well, I’ll leave you here to finish up. I gotta watch these guys in this house, make sure they don’t steal any shit.” She chuckled. “If you need an assistant, I’ll get my boy in here to help you, all right?”
“Okay. Thank you, Aries. I look forward to breakfast tomorrow, too…”
He winked, blew her a kiss, and headed out the door…
CHAPTER SEVEN
One Picture Paints a Thousand Words
“That don’t seem quite fair. Ya mama said there wasn’t anything you could do about it, though. Hold on, Lauren, gotta get my slippers,” Dad said. She was glad she’d scheduled this call so she wouldn’t forget when she got bogged down with work.
Lauren sipped on her tall glass of extra-sugary cherry Kool-Aid, one of her favorite drinks in childhood and more recently, her guilty pleasure in times of stress. So much weighed on her mind; for starters, she had to find a new place to rent.
She relished the taste of the sweet beverage going down, nostalgia creeping around her, wishing to be heard and fed like a stray cat looping its tail around a stranger’s ankle, begging for a morsel of remembrance or two. She’d pulled out a few of her favorite dolls from when she was a girl, laughing at herself as she did so, and situated them just so with her that evening. She’d also included a few books from her reserve from Benjamin’s house, making the dolls, her tiny companions, appear as if they were reading them, too.
She’d never dare let any of her family or friends see what she was doing, but so many strange things were taking place in her life. She needed all of this – to go back to a time, even if only in her mind, when life had been less complicated. It’s so weird. I’m aware. They wouldn’t understand. But it’s my kind of weird, and I ain’t hurting nobody…
She’d always come off as older than her years with those who knew her well. She had done her best to uphold that image, which wasn’t really hard as it was a part of who she was. However, behind closed doors, at times like this, she gave herself permission to let go.
She listened to the music of her youth, rocked as she sat in the middle of the living room floor, and nourished the little girl within her with all the things that she loved: sweets, books, rain… She looked out the large living room window and smiled at the sight of raindrops cascading down the glass. It sounded so nice, like wet kisses from heaven.
She was surrounded by stacks and stacks of books from that big mansion, some still in the boxes waiting to receive her Kindred Spirit stamp of approval. ‘Doves in the Wind’ by SZA played at low volume, and she sighed with contentment. She sniffed the air… It smelled like Aries’ father’s home… a hint of pipe smoke mingling with the paper aroma. Benjamin smokes? He must be a smoker…
“Lauren? I’m back. You must’ve not heard me.”
“Sorry, Daddy, I started daydreaming. Yeah, about what you said before you got off the phone, I talked the guy into six months, so that gives me some time.”