“Would you mind if I crashed at your place tonight?” I asked.
“Don’t you have a place?”
“I can’t go to my place,” I told him.
“Doesn’t your boyfriend have a place?”
“His place isn’t an option.”
Tex stopped stapling and turned to me. He watched me for a couple of seconds, ciphering something in his head, came to a decision and then shrugged.
“You can share the couch with Tiddles, Winky and Flossy.”
“Thanks.”
I had to admit, I really liked sleeping with Lee. His body was comfy warm but strong and solid so I felt cozy and protected all at the same time. I didn’t think Tiddles, Winky and Flossy were going to have the same effect but it was just one night, I’d cope.
* * * * *
It was three o’clock and Duke hadn’t come back. Jane was off doing whatever Jane did when she wasn’t at Fortnum’s (I imagined her tapping away at an old electric typewriter like Angela Lansbury). I was sitting behind the book counter reading through a magazine someone had left behind and Tex was sitting in the middle of one of the couches, looking wild-eyed and frightening.
“This is boring,” Tex said.
I looked up from the extraordinary tale of the courage of a young man faced with a rare form of cancer and then looked back down without answering.
What could I say? It was boring.
“Do something,” Tex demanded.
I looked up again.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know, something. Isn’t it on someone’s schedule today to kidnap you and hold you hostage?”
Oh, dear Lord.
“All the bad guys are either dead or behind bars,” I told him.
“Bummer.”
Great.
The door opened and Mr. Kumar came in, behind him shuffled in scary, living-dead Mrs. Salim.
“We came to sell you back your book,” Mr. Kumar announced.
Double great. That triumph was short-lived.
“That’s cool, Mr. Kumar but I don’t buy them for as much as I sell them,” I told him.
Mr. Kumar nodded. “It’s like a rental.”
I looked at him.
I could live with that.
Mrs. Salim shuffled into the bowels of the bookstore.