The Land of Umbrellas by Stephanie Van Orman - HTML preview

Copyright © 2024 Stephanie Van Orman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of written quotations in a book review.

Any reference to historical events, real people or places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, places are products of the author’s imagination.

Front cover image by DinosArt

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Book cover  design by Stephanie Van Orman

IBSN: 978-1-990217-40-1

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The Land of Umbrellas

A novelette by

Stephanie Van Orman

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Chapter One

If He Wraps His Car Around a Tree…

“I think we should break up,” Lindsay said to Oliver in the darkness. Her voice was little more than a cracked whisper that spoke more of her pain than what her words actually meant.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his hand reaching for hers, though he couldn’t see her well from around his inflated airbag.

“I told you.  You drank too much to drive,” she replied, refusing to answer his question. “And yes, I’m hurt. My airbag didn’t inflate. I hit my head. I’m bleeding and my legs are pinned between the seat and the dashboard!”

“Okay,” he said, collecting his wits. “Can you reach the lever that pulls the seat back?”

She reached down and found it. Tugging on it, it moved the seat and she felt blood flow into her legs again.

“It worked?” he questioned, still unable to see her.

“Yes. It worked.”

“Can you open your door?”

Lindsay pulled the lever on the door, but it didn’t move. “No.”

“What about the window? Can you open that to get out?”

“I am not opening the window,” she objected immediately. “It’s raining, and if I open it, I might not be able to close it. We might be stuck here for hours waiting for a tow truck.”

“Can you reach your phone?” he asked.

She groaned.  “It doesn’t matter if I can or can’t. It’s out of power. I told you that before we left. I shouldn’t have let you drive.”

“I’d only had two,” he said, stiffly defending himself.

“Yeah. Two too many.”

Oliver stuttered some sort of apology, but Lindsay couldn’t hear it and even if she could, all she could think about was the string of men who had disappointed her before that moment and how she should have expected Oliver to do the same. When actually, she knew why she hadn’t pegged him for the same pig from a different litter as all the other men she knew.  It was because something about Oliver always made her feel like she had come home. He was like the brother she’d never had or the cousin who found her in a crowded room and introduced her to everyone like she was a star.

The plan for her to come work at Oliver’s family hotel during the winter had been in motion since before she had agreed to be his girlfriend, and being his official girlfriend had been great until he wrapped his car around a tree. At the moment of impact, her first thought had been wondering if they would die.

When she saw that they hadn’t died, her next thought was that she needed to break up with him. Lindsay had never been one to postpone difficult jobs.  Those were the first words out of her mouth after the crash.

Now, she had to do the thing victims sadly need to do sometimes. She turned to Oliver and asked him the question that would make her inhuman if she skipped it. “Are you hurt?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. His legs were not squashed between the wheel and the seat. His seat was further back to begin with.  He’d hurt his wrist and his neck, he admitted in wheezy half breaths.

“Where’s your phone?” Lindsay asked him.

“It’s in my back pocket.”

She let out a huff of annoyed air. “And I’m supposed to put my hand down your pants to get it?”

“Only if you want to call a tow truck or an ambulance,” he replied crossly.

Lindsay had never heard him use that tone before.  He was probably in more pain than he was admitting.

“I love it when you talk that way,” she chucked, breaking the tension.

“You never love anything,” he scoffed. “You told me as much the other night when I asked you out. You said you never fall in love.”

She unbuckled his seatbelt and put her hand in the back pocket of his pants.  It was empty.  “No.  I said the opposite.  I said I always fall in love.  It just doesn’t stick. Something always happens to spoil love for me, but you were always so alluring when you smiled and played nice. I didn’t even know you could do a grouchy voice when you weren’t acting. It’s reassuring.” She felt behind him into his other pocket. It was also empty. “I thought you said it was in there.”

“I thought it was,” he said, peeking around the airbag.

“Charming,” she said drolly. “If it’s not there, then where do you think it is?”

“It’s probably in one of the front pockets,” he said quietly.

“And why can’t you get it?” Lindsay asked, almost at the end of her patience.

“My wrist hurts on that side and I can’t reach it with my left hand over the airbag,” he whined.

She patted his leg before diving into his pocket. “It’s there,” she said, reaching in with two fingers to tug it free.

When she turned the phone over to look at it, the screen was already lit up. Someone was calling, but the ringer was turned off so they didn’t hear it.

“You’re getting a call,” she said. “Gavin.”

“It’s my brother. Answer it, and hold it up to my ear.”

Lindsay answered the call. “Hello, you’ve reached Oliver Grantford's mobile phone. Please allow a moment for me to connect you,” she said, not having lost all of her spunk.

She held it up to Oliver’s ear while he spoke.

“Hey, Man.  Yes, we were on our way up tonight. The girl? It’s Lindsay. Remember?  She’s going to help with the hotel renovations since it’s always impossible to get people to come. Yes… that may be… I’m sure you’ll be able to find something for her to do… Yes, I was driving when you called. No, we’ve stopped just outside Victoria. We had a little accident. We should be back on the road in no time.” There was a long pause before Oliver finally got the chance to speak again. “Fine. You’re right. We had a big accident. I need to see a doctor and maybe she does too. Fine! Do that!”

The call abruptly ended and Oliver mushed his face into the airbag like he might suffocate himself.

“What’s going on?” Lindsay asked.

Muffled sounds came from the airbag and it was quite some time before Oliver took a breath. He admitted to her that his brother, Gavin, had been in Victoria for the evening and was coming to get them. “He says we can have the car towed in the morning.”

“Okay,” Lindsay said, opening the vanity mirror over her head to see what the damage was. The cut on her head had bled, but that didn’t mean it had spoiled her good looks. The car still had power and a light appeared to show her that she looked exactly like a zombie in a haunted house. She knew exactly what the zombies in haunted houses looked like. It had been her summer job two years in a row.

She hunted around for a tissue. “Don’t you at least have an old Tim Horton’s bag with a few napkins in it?”

“I cleaned the car for the drive,” he explained, his cheek still resting on the airbag.

She would have been more impressed that he’d cleaned his car if there had been no accident. “Shouldn’t that thing have deflated by now?”

“Probably,” he said, sounding desolate.

“Should we pop it?”

“No. I like it. It’s homey.”

“Homey?” she repeated.

“It’s a lot homier than Gavin is going to be when he gets here.”

“Is he going to be really mad?” she asked cautiously.

“Yup.”

Oliver didn’t offer any more of an explanation than that, and Lindsay didn’t ask for one. Instead, she sat and listened to the rain on the roof of the car. After a minute of that, she turned to him and said, “Don’t sleep. People with head injuries aren’t allowed to sleep.”

“And I was so looking forward to our first night sleeping together,” he said in a shallow monotone.

She laughed. “Our first night together is obviously a success if no one is sleeping.”

He laughed too. Then he turned and looked at her with the vanity light still on. “You look like a zombie.”

“So do you.”

“Do you know any good necrophilia jokes? That would be a good way to pass the time.”

Lindsay groaned. “What do you call it when two necrophiliacs go on a date?”

“A wake?” Oliver offered.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I asked without having a plan as to how to finish it. I thought you’d nail it without me having to come up with a punchline.”

“I have a head injury if that’s any excuse.”

“I’ll use that excuse too,” Lindsay said, using the sleeve of her shirt to blot at the blood on her face. It didn’t improve anything so she closed the mirror and turned out the light.

“Even though things started out badly,” he said gently.  “The whole thing won’t be bad.  We’re going to have a good time and we can practice our jokes.”

The last class they had taken together had been an improv class. Lindsay had loved doing it, but she felt Oliver was better at it.  He always made her laugh so hard, she broke.  It was all very unprofessional, a strong hint that an acting career was not in her future.

On the road, there had been headlights that passed from time to time, but nothing could have prepared Lindsay for the truck that pulled up behind them. It was massive. At first, she thought it was a tow truck, and then she thought it must be some sort of emergency vehicle, but did they have headlights shaped like parentheses? At any rate, why did they have their brights on?

“That’s Gavin,” Oliver said, trying to open his door with his left hand and failing at it.

Gavin opened the door for him, said something messy Lindsay couldn’t quite hear, deflated the airbag, and helped Oliver out. He had an umbrella and he escorted his brother around to the passenger side door of the truck before coming back to the wreck of a car to get Lindsay.

Lindsay couldn’t open her door, so she scooted across her seat and into the driver’s seat. The side-view mirror practically blinded her when Gavin came back to help her. He had a flashlight in his hand and whited out her vision completely as he shone it in her face. She leaned down in the driver’s seat, found the release for the trunk, and pulled it.

“What are you doing?” the man with the flashlight asked.

“Opening the trunk. My bag goes where I go.”

“I’ll get it,” he said as he grasped her upper arm in his and lifted her to her feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping.”

“You’re hurting me!”

He let go and without the support, she suddenly found that her bruised legs didn’t give her much to stand on and she fell, knees first, into the wet grass. He caught her again, but only so she didn’t fall further. Dropping the umbrella, he put both arms around her and lifted her back onto her feet. Her head was swimming.

“You don’t have to,” she wheezed.

“I think I do.” Gavin picked her up the rest of the way and carried her gingerly to a seat in the back of the oversized truck. He turned on the cabin lights and looked at her, but all Lindsay could do was blink at the light and cover her face with her hand. “I think you’re right about the hospital,” he said to Oliver. “That will have to be our first stop.  I’ll get your bags.”

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Chapter Two

If He Gives You the Bed While He Takes the Couch…

The emergency room in rural Vancouver Island was much less busy than the emergency room in Metro Vancouver. Exactly three people were sitting in the waiting room. They were clearly all together and only one of them was waiting for medical attention. Lindsay had never spoken to a triage nurse so quickly in her life. They didn’t even let Oliver sit down in the waiting room before they hauled him to the back and ordered X-rays for him.

Lindsay was left alone with Gavin, who looked like a yeti that had evolved just far enough to pass for a human.  He was very hairy under his toque.  His taffy-colored hair was loose and mingled with his beard which was long enough to hit the top button on his shirt.  That piece of clothing was made of green plaid and layered under a jean jacket.  His hands were rough and he said so little, it made him seem more like a yeti.  

Lindsay was spared from having to make conversation with him immediately as a doctor showed up to take a look at her.  Other than the scratch in her eyebrow, which had made her bleed like a pig, she was not concussed, nor did she need stitches. She was given a chair next to Oliver’s bed while a nurse went to fetch a second chair for Gavin.

It was nice behind the curtain in the emergency room. It was past eleven, so the lights over the bed were off. The curtains dimmed the lights from the nurses’ station.  It was a muted light, perfect for someone whose head still hurt.

Oliver was very unwell as he rested on the bed. For one thing, he had stopped making jokes, a sure sign of trouble.

Oliver wasn’t the kind of man who made a good first impression on Lindsay.  For one thing, he was too cheerful and she usually went for more sullen types.  However, sullen types had not treated her well, so she decided to try Oliver’s wide smile, thick cheeks, and hands big enough to make a girl follow when he led her on the dance floor.  Well, he hadn’t exactly danced with her, but their improv class gave him plenty of opportunities to lead her.

For the first time, Lindsay wondered if he might not be all right.  

She glanced over at Gavin, his eyes glinting from between the hairy line of his eyebrows and the beginning of his beard. She finally found a moment to introduce herself to him. She turned to him and stuck out her hand, but quickly retracted it when she realized how much blood was still caked on it. “Sorry for the poor introduction,” she said. “I’m Lindsay Thomas.”

Gavin looked at her and said gruffly, “I’m Gavin Grantford.”

The only thing she could think of to say was, “That’s a good name. G is the loveliest letter in calligraphy and you’ve got two of them.”

He paused for a moment. “No one has ever told me that before.”

“It’s because the cursive capital G is one shape and the typeface capital G is a completely different shape. You know what the prettiest shape is?”

He looked at her strangely from under his toque and over his beard.

Normally, a look like that would have discouraged her from saying anything further. Except, they were stuck in an emergency room for who knew how long, so she continued. “It’s a circle or a sphere. Think about it. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than Europa or Enceladus?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t have if I knew what you were talking about.”

Lindsay explained, “Europa is a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus orbits Saturn, but that’s not the point. The point is that a circle is the most beautiful shape and a G is a circle with a beautiful gap and line to it. A Q can be very enchanting as well, except that when you bring the capital Q into cursive, it looks like a fancy number two, which is not very appealing. A cursive capital G on the other hand is so pretty. Don’t you think it looks sort of like someone swishing their cloak out with one hand? Don’t even get me started on how fascinating a lowercase g is.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said blankly.

Lindsay considered that as an open invitation to shut her mouth and promptly did so. She was naturally very chatty and did not enjoy silence in general, but annoying a stranger who had driven her to the hospital was not on her list of things to do that night. Obviously, it was already a difficult night for Gavin, who had not planned on spending the wee hours of his night babysitting his baby brother in the emergency room. It wasn’t easy for Lindsay either, but she was used to everything in her life flying out of her control.

The silence broke when Gavin seemed to realize that he had been unfriendly, though not outright rude. He turned to her and said, “Oliver hasn’t told me much about you other than your name. Where do you come from?”

Lindsay’s pulse quickened. She loved being asked questions. “Vancouver.”

“And how do you know Oliver?”

“We went to acting classes together.”

“And you’ve always been from Vancouver?”

“Yes, there and around there. Have you always lived here?”

“Yes.”

She was disappointed the questions had stopped. The silence stretched out again, and then the doctor pulled the curtain back. They had already met him when he had examined Lindsay’s head injury.

“Well,” he said, with his calm doctor's voice. “His right wrist and arm are broken, but I’m more worried about the bump on the back of his head.”

The long and short of it was that the doctor was going to keep Oliver in the hospital overnight and run more tests in the morning. There was no reason for Gavin and Lindsay to hang around. The hospital would call them when they had more news.

“Where was Oliver taking you for the night?” Gavin asked her as they walked back to the truck.

“He said something about an empty apartment over a clothing store that was empty.”

Gavin groaned quietly. “I wish he had told me that was what he wanted because if he had I would have reminded him that it is unfurnished.”

“I can crash on the floor,” Lindsay offered. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to let you do that.”

“I don’t need much. Anything is an upgrade from a chair in a hospital. Do you have a couch?”

Gavin huffed, making his disgust clear. He opened the truck door for her, helped her up into the high-seated truck, and closed the door.  “I’ll take you to the hotel,” he said once he joined her on the other side.

“Aren’t you renovating it?”

“Yes, but some of the rooms are still being rented out. The single bedrooms need repair, but the suites are ready to be used.”

Lindsay huffed, making her disgust clear. “I can’t take up a whole suite.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m broke. Even if you give me the room for free, I can’t afford to tip housekeeping. Isn’t there somewhere I could crash quietly until we can talk to Oliver and see what plans he made?”

“You don’t have to worry about tipping housekeeping or the cost of the room. I’ll cover both. It’s just for one night and I’ll get Oliver to pay me for it later. Feel better?”

She chortled. “You think Oliver has any money? You think we came to renovate a hotel because we’re swimming in cash?”

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I have a guest room at my place. It is absolutely free for you to stay there. I just didn’t think you’d want to stay alone in the same house with a man you don’t know.”

“I’m not precious, okay?” she said, wrapping her finger around her red-brown ringlet. “And I have never once, in my entire life, been the only person sleeping in a room.”

“Well, you’re going to try it tonight.”

“It’ll be a fresh experience for sure. Make sure to bump around in the next room, and tell your girlfriend not to mind me when she gets up in the morning. She can make all the noise she wants. I can’t sleep when it’s too quiet.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said tightly.

“Hmm… I thought Oliver said you did.”

“Yes. I did .”

His voice was like a door slamming in her face, the single word demanding that she stop asking questions.  Lindsay decided to let it go without another word. He’d already arranged for a place for her to sleep. He didn’t need to do any more for her that night.

Twenty-five minutes later, they pulled up in front of a log cabin. Lindsay had seen places like it in her travels, but she’d never stayed in one before. Gavin got her bag and led her around to the back of the house.

“This is the way in?” she questioned as she followed him.

“No, I’m leading you to the way out.” If it hadn’t been said with good humor behind it, she probably would have left him there, but it was said the way Oliver said things. He and his brother were the kind of men who said ‘no’ when they meant ‘yes’.

Inside the cabin was a staircase that led up, but Gavin took her forward past the stairs and through a sitting room into a private room. With the light switched on, it looked like a hunting lodge. The logs were bare and there were antlers on the wall. The bed was made up with a bedspread of red and black plaid.

“Is it really okay for me to sleep here?” Lindsay asked quietly. “It looks too nice.”

“It’s not too nice,” Gavin said from beneath his beard. “The suite at the hotel would have been nice.”

“Thanks. Where’s the bathroom?”

He showed her. He was about to leave when he suddenly turned back and asked, “Is there anything else you need?”

She thought about the gnawing ache in her stomach. She was hungry, but she’d been hungry before. She smiled and told him she had everything she needed.

After he closed the door between them, Lindsay peeled her clothes off one sweaty alarmed piece at a time. Each item of clothing felt tragic as she freed herself from it. She realized that even though she especially liked the clothes she had worn that day, she was never going to be able to wear them with the same carefree spirit she had when she put them on that morning. Forever onward, they were the clothes she had worn when Oliver crashed the car and ruined their romance. They would be clothes that had been taken off in a strange room in a strange man’s house.

She tried to look at the experience in a positive light. Tried to remember that it was the first time she had slept in a log cabin, which was something she’d always wanted to try. It was her first night sleeping in a room by herself…

That felt luxurious.

Starlight shone through the window.

She thought of all the times in the past when it had been possible for her to sleep in a room by herself. The opportunity had come up, but she had always opted to sleep alongside one of her sisters, or a friend, or an aunt, or her mother. Her life had always been abuzz with friendly faces, though never a man she could trust.

She thought about the gruff woodsman outside the door. They had driven deep into the forest to come to the log cabin. It was a little like a comedy about BigFoot. A beautiful young journalist goes with a mysterious stranger on a quest to find a sasquatch when, in a bizarre plot twist, the mysterious stranger turns out to be the beast she was hunting for.

Lindsay chuckled and pulled a long silky nightgown over her head. She lifted the blanket to get between the sheets and found they were made of flannel. That was a surprise for her. She’d never slept on flannel sheets before. She imagined herself a character on a piece of felt stuck to the flannelgraph with a kindergarten teacher telling the story of how you should never judge a person by how they looked.

Her head hit the pillow and again she was reminded of that feeling she always had when she was with Oliver.  It was a feeling like she had come home. But why was she feeling it in his brother’s guest room? It wasn’t an important bed or an important pillow. This was where he housed strangers when he couldn’t put them up in the hotel. It shouldn’t have felt like home, but it did.

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Chapter Three

If He Lets You Wear His Shirt…

         

In the morning, Lindsay awoke with her head feeling clear and pain-free. The doctor was right, she only had a cut in her eyebrow that was exactly three millimeters long. She went to the bathroom and cleaned the remaining blood from the folds around her eyes. With that done, she suddenly had this impish idea that she should do her makeup before she got dressed. Lindsay was not the type of girl who looked like an entirely different person when she put makeup on, but she knew it improved things and she had made a bad impression on Gavin the night before. She had been covered in blood, been with his drunk brother, been involved in a car accident, and bored him with her conversation about calligraphy.

She got her makeup bag and went about salvaging her pride.  With the arrival of morning light, she had a second try ahead of her.  She wouldn’t make the mistakes she made the night before. The freshly revived zombie look was already washed off.  She wouldn’t bore him with her nonsense. Besides, she’d look like a beauty, which always made everyone a little nicer to her when the going was tough.

Lindsay’s most noticeable attribute was her hair. Her hair was too thick and had natural waves usually only worn by homeless people. She had gone unnoticed most of her grade school years, until the year before graduation, she had had an impulse to dye her hair an auburn red, which had gone splendidly. It had given her whole body a new impression and people who never noticed her suddenly took notice. The brown in her hair brought out the brown in her eyes until she made her hair cherry coke red.  Then her eyes turned gray.

For her clothing, Lindsay preferred to wear monochrome—especially white. The contrast of the red hair and the black and white clothes made her even more dazzling. She used to wear lots of colors but after the hair color change, all her clothes were white, black, icy blue, and gray.

When she finished her makeup, she returned to the bedroom, went through her bag, and realized that she had left her housecoat at her last digs. She rolled her eyes. That meant it was lost forever. She opened the closet to see if there was anything already in the room that she could slide over her nightgown. To her surprise, the closet was mostly full of men’s clothing.

She chose a white collared shirt with light blue lines and threw it on over her nightgown. She was too hungry to think about the closet and what all those clothes meant. Instead, she padded up the stairs and into the kitchen.

The upper floor was beautiful, all vaulted ceilings and glass overlooking the forest outside, and through the trees, she spied a lake. Or was it the ocean? She paused to admire the view and looked carefully in every direction, pretending to look for the sasquatch.

Suddenly, a knock sounded at the front door. Lindsay didn’t know where Gavin was, but she thought it was better to answer the door before the knocker knocked again. What if he was still sleeping?

Swinging the door open, she put a finger to her lips and said, “Good morning,” as quietly as possible.

A woman stood on the doorstep. She held a cardboard box in her arms and stared at Lindsay like she was a serpent. Gawking, she said sharply, “This is from Marissa.” She practically threw the box, open-topped, in Lindsay’s unprepared arms. “It’s what she had left of Gavin’s things at her place. Obviously, she doesn’t want to see him again after last night and she asked me to bring them.”

“And your name is?” Lindsay asked, at least wanting to get the name of the person who dropped the box off before she disappeared.

The woman seemed as concerned as Lindsay that she needed to look cool and didn’t leave immediately. She placed her sunglasses on her nose and then pointed that nose in the air. “Tell Gavin Carleen dropped it off.”

“I will. Thank you. I’m Lindsay,” she said, balancing the box on one arm and giving her a friendly little wave.

Carleen’s mouth turned into a snarl as deliberate as her bleach-blonde hair. She ignored the friendliness and said icily, “I’m busy. I’d better be going.” With that, she flipped her blonde hair, pranced down the wooden steps, and got into her compact car.

Lindsay turned around and bumped into a man coming up behind her. With zero lead-up, her cheeks were aflame.

“Hi,” she said, peering up into his amber eyes. “I didn’t know anybody else was here,” she said, gasping for breath a little like a fish. Pausing to examine him, she didn’t know if she’d ever seen a man as attractive as the one standing in front of her.  In the next moment, he was taking the box from her and looking over her shoulder to see Carleen’s car as it drove away.

His hair was brown with so much blond in it, she couldn’t tell if it was sun-bleached or merely dyed. It grew long around his ears with bends in it that made it appear like it had recently been tied in a ponytail. His beard was clipped short and everything about him was beautiful. The cartilage in his nose, the smirk on his lips, the look of interest and intelligence in his eyes, which were framed by gold-rimmed spectacles.

To Lindsay, it felt like she had never known how to describe the man of her dreams. She had to be shown what she wanted, and it was right in front of her.

“Close the door,” he said to her as he led the way back into the kitchen.

“Hi,” she said again, following him. “I’m sorry we didn’t meet last night. I’m Lindsay.”

“We did meet last night,” he said, looking amused.

She stared at him. Black toque? Gone. Bushy beard? Mostly gone. He smiled and the smile was something like a reincarnation of Oliver’s smile. It was Gavin and he looked astonishingly less like a sasquatch than she remembered.

“Sorry, Gavin. You look so different. You cut off your beard?”  What she wanted to say was, ‘You chopped down the forest that was growing on your face,’ but she wisely refrained.  A tightly clipped beard was one thing, but when a beard hid a man’s Adam’s apple, things had gotten out of hand in Lindsay’s opinion.  Now, Gavin’s beard wasn’t even a tight-clipped one.  He was down to stubble.  “Looks really good,” she said out loud.

He merely nodded and placed the box on the kitchen floor.

“What is all this stuff?” she asked, trying to direct her focus to the box if only to stop herself from staring at him.

“It’s everything that’s left from my broken relationship.”

“Everything?  Small box.”

He groaned slightly. “At least, I hope it’s everything.”

“Did things end badly?”

“For me, things ended well, because they ended. She is unhappy, which is what always happens when people don’t get what they want. Hopefully, she will feel better soon.”

“Marissa?  That was your girlfriend’s name?  Ex-girlfriend now?”

“Yes,” he said bluntly before kicking the box out of the way with his toe. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“I love breakfast.”

“What should we have?”

Lindsay looked around a little frantically. “Something easy? Toast? Cereal?”

He looked at her. “I’m not an infant. I can cook. Do you like pancakes?”

“I love pancakes!” she gushed.  She had never had a man make her pancakes in her life.

He busied himself in the kitchen preparing his batter. “I got a call from Oliver this morning.”

“Thank heaven it wasn’t the doctor,” Lindsay breathed.

Gavin nodded in agreement. “He’s fine except for the breaks in his arm. The head injury wasn’t as bad as the doctor feared.  I thought we’d pick him up after breakfast. He’s getting a hospital breakfast, but that’s all part of his punishment for crashing his car.”

“Can I help you?” she asked, coming around the island to stand beside him.

He looked at her like he’d never seen her before. “No. Get out.”

She slithered back to the other side of the island and sat on a stool facing the rest of the kitchen.

“Pancakes are easy,” he elaborated. “And you don’t know your way around my kitchen.”

Lindsay remembered her vow to avoid being chatty and closed her mouth with a determination not to open it again until she was asked a question.

“Do you eat dairy?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Are you allergic to anything?”

“No.”

“And there’s nothing you hate and you only love breakfast?” he asked, that touch of amusement entering his voice again as he stood in front of his grill.

“I don’t just love breakfast. I love food.” Then suddenly, she forgot her resolution to keep quiet as a terrifying thought entered her mind. “You know, if that girl who just came by, Carleen, is your ex-girlfriend’s friend, she might have misunderstood what was going on when I answered the door. She might have thought that you’d already replaced Marissa with me. I didn’t get a chance to explain anything to her.”

“That’s all right. It’s not your problem,” he said coolly, noticing what Lindsay was wearing over her nightgown. “I don’t think I ever let Marissa wear one of my shirts.”

“Sorry. Should I not have borrowed it?” She tugged on the collar, revealing the lace neckline of her floor-length nightgown.

He glanced at her. “It’s fine. You can wear it.”

If there was one thing Lindsay was confident about, it was her physical appearance. That had been a lot of the reason she thought she could be an actress in the first place. Looking at Gavin across the island, she was perplexed. Did she make such a bad impression on him the night before that she couldn’t salvage it in the morning?

His back was to her while he cooked. His shoulder blades jutted slightly out of the back of his black t-shirt. He wore blue and gray plaid pants, like that was what he had worn to bed. She was suddenly interested in what his bedroom was like. The master bedroom! The idea took complete control of her mind and she wondered if she could see the doorway to his room if she swiveled around. Around she went, and what she saw was a couch with blankets and bedding spilling onto the floor. She saw with dismay that aside from a bathroom tucked beside the fireplace, the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room took up all the available floor space on the top floor.

Without another second ticking on the clock, she realized he had put her to bed in his own room and he had slept on the couch.

She had been pink before. She was red now!

---

Chapter Four

If He Lets You Live in His Old Girlfriend’s Apartment…

“Huh?” Gavin said as he sat across from Oliver and Lindsay in a booth at a cafe. They were having donuts and herbal tea. They were only there because Gavin had called it when he said that Oliver would not like the breakfast he got at the hospital. After they picked him up, he insisted they go out for donuts. So they sat in the booth and squabbled.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin said, giving a passive-aggressive apology. “You didn’t think to ask me if it was all right for Lindsay to live in Marissa’s old apartment?”  

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” Oliver defended. “You said she moved out. I know it’s not big enough for more than one person. I thought Lindsay could stay there and I’d stay over at Ricky’s. What’s the big deal? It’s not like Marissa is coming back and you’re on the hook for the lease. Someone might as well use it.”

Gavin groaned and rubbed his temple.

Lindsay did a double take. When Oliver told her of his plan to work in Cowichan Bay after the tourist season, she thought he said he would stay at Gavin’s. Plans had changed, and he hadn’t mentioned that to her or Gavin until that minute. She noted her annoyance but said nothing.

“It’s fine,” Gavin said, sounding peeved. “It’s absolutely fine. Where’s Lindsay going to get furniture and where is all that furniture going to go in two months when the lease expires?”

Oliver had been about to respond when Lindsay interrupted him. “Look, I’m a grown-up. Gavin, if I can borrow you and your truck for a few hours today, I can get the essentials. I won’t need a lot of furniture.  I’ve done this sort of thing on the fly many times and if I don’t hate the place, can you help me make arrangements to lease the apartment in my name after the two months are up? If I hate it, I can surely find somewhere else to live during those two months.”

Gavin smirked. “I guess you can borrow me. I think the lease will be renewable if you decide you want that. Oliver, do you want to come with us to buy furniture?”

Oliver groaned. “I feel terrible. My arm is broken in three places! I can’t help. I’m helpless ! You two clearly don’t need me to come with you since you’re such fast friends after meeting last night. Can’t you just drop me off at Ricky’s?”

Lindsay’s eyes moved from Oliver’s cast to his face in a couple of circuits until her gaze landed on his eyes. Didn’t he want to talk to her about the fact that she’d dumped him? Normally, when she told a man she was dumping him, he was thrown into a panic and tried to salvage their relationship. Oliver just sat there, whining about his hurt arm and asking to be dropped off at his buddy’s.  

Lindsay had no idea who Ricky was.

She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was not there because she wanted to have a romance with Oliver. Their getting together had been a kind of impromptu thing (like everything else in her class). Maybe it didn’t mean much to either of them, but she knew one thing: she had been planning to come to the island to help with the hotel before  she and Oliver decided to make out in the front of his car a few nights before. She wasn’t trying to run off with him specifically. She was trying to start a new life that had nothing to do with acting.

She tucked her hair behind her ear and decided to forget that they had ever said anything about being a couple.

“That’s fine by me,” she said with a noncommittal shrug.

“I guess I can do that,” Gavin said, blowing a chuckle through his nose.  

Lindsay felt a little weird. She had never had brunch with two men before when neither one of them was interested in her.

Oliver started closing the lid to the box containing the rest of the donuts. “I’ll just take these as a thank you for Ricky.”

Soon, they were back in the truck. Oliver rode in the front with Gavin and Lindsay sat in the back. Truly, she hadn’t appreciated how much space there was in the back of his cab when she’d ridden in it the night before. It was beyond luxury.  

As they drove, Gavin yelled little touristy bits of information for Lindsay’s benefit. In particular, he drove them past the hotel she was going to help him renovate.

The Sealion Hotel was placed on the side of a hill that looked down over the bay. It was a long thin building with many windows. Plenty of rooms to renovate. There was not a beach where the water and the land met. Instead, the hotel led down to the marina. There was a mountain on one side of the road. The other side was a strip of shops lining the bay. The marina was on the other side.

Oliver pointed to her new apartment as they made their way down the main street. Lindsay saw the shop called 999 Things to Wear and the smaller second floor on top of it. That was where her new apartment was. It had windows overlooking the bay. She couldn’t wait to see inside it.

She tried to squelch her interest. It might have a beautiful view, a stunning location, and be an absolute mess on the inside.

Ricky’s house was up the road. The road wound through trees past houses Lindsay didn’t know were there until she saw a touch of siding between the tree trunks.

They pulled up a winding driveway and stopped. The yard was messy and the house was in disrepair. Oliver leaped from the truck saying a hasty goodbye to Gavin and Lindsay before whipping his bag out of the back with his good hand and heading for the front door. Once there, he rang the bell, seemed to realize he was an idiot for leaving without saying goodbye, and blew a kiss to Lindsay.

Lindsay didn’t know what to do with a farewell like that. She had never been left that way by a man who was pursuing her. When she was seeing someone, he didn’t pay attention to anyone besides her. She had never had a man she was dating blow her a kiss instead of just kissing her. Maybe he had paid far more attention to her dumping him the night before than she thought. He just wasn’t that upset about it.

“Want to come up front?” Gavin asked. “It’s less bumpy up here.”

As she was feeling a bit carsick with all the twists and turns in the road, she did as he suggested. When she got to the front seat, the door to Ricky’s house opened and Oliver ducked inside.

“Do they smoke weed or something?” she asked, looking after Oliver with a bent eyebrow. “Who’s that excited to see his buddy?”

Gavin didn’t comment and put the truck in reverse, getting them back out onto the road.

“Oliver skipped telling me the backstory. Care to fill me in?” Lindsay asked, hoping for an information dump.

“They’ve been friends since they were in grade school. Basically inseparable, but I don’t know much more than that. Oliver hasn’t visited lately. Maybe he’s in a hurry to catch up,” Gavin drawled lazily as his wheels took the curves in the road like the truck had driven the road so many times it knew the turns without being steered.

“Hmm… He’s never mentioned Ricky to me before,” Lindsay said as she gazed out the window.

“Would you be uncomfortable staying with me again tonight?” Gavin asked slowly.

Lindsay felt the heat forming in her cheeks. “You tricked me,” she said. “I thought I was staying in your guest room. I was sleeping in your bed. I would not have agreed to that if I had known.”

“I know,” he said, without embarrassment or reservation. “That was why I brought you in the back door. Want to do it again tonight?”

She feigned a laugh but didn’t answer. The plan was for them to buy the furniture she needed.  

“I’m only saying this in case we can’t find you a proper bed today,” he said smoothly. “I want you to know that I’m fine with putting you up for another night.”

Lindsay was always suspicious whenever a man behaved chivalrously if it meant that she was somehow placed in a vulnerable position because of it. She glanced over at him. He wasn’t interested in her. His hands were on the wheel and his eyes were on the road. Unlike another man, he wasn’t getting anything out of it.  

“Thanks, but we’ll find a bed. My standards for such things are surprisingly low. We’re not going to buy a bed. We’re going to buy a mattress. I’ve been researching how to outfit a small apartment for weeks. I have a plan. I really wouldn’t like to waste more of your time than I have to. As it is, I’m really thankful for your help today.”

He smacked his lips. “I’ll be thankful if you’re helpful with the hotel tomorrow. Oliver has started out by being useless. He won’t be doing any heavy lifting with a broken arm.”

Lindsay tightened her fists a few times to ease her frustration. “Will that be a big pain? Not having him help?”

“I didn’t expect him to help much in the first place. Please don’t quit, Lindsay,” he said. “I didn’t have a plan for Marissa’s apartment and I’m the one paying for it, so I’m happy to let you stay there for two months rent-free.”

“Really?” she gasped, in awe of his generosity.

He groaned. “I am paying for it anyway. Doing renovations at the hotel may not be your bag, but please don’t quit. If you don’t like the work, we can talk about it and get you doing something more up your alley. There are lots of jobs in hotels.”

“What’s your job?”

“I do whatever,” he said gruffly. “Right now, it’s renovating season. The rain is going to come down and the tourists are going to stay home. Look,” he said pointing to a spot in the sky. “There’s a bit of rain coming now.”

He wasn’t kidding. The rain came down suddenly and dotted the windshield in water droplets.

He stopped the truck in front of 999 Things to Wear and he and Lindsay ran to get a look at the apartment before they went shopping.

The staircase that led to the apartment was on the side of the white-flanked storefront. They stood under the eaves as the rain came down and Gavin struggled to open the lock. Inside, the stairs went straight up with no breaks.  

“This looks fun,” Lindsay said as Gavin shut the door behind them.

“By fun , I assume you mean unbearably gloomy.”

“Nah, it’s not so bad,” Lindsay countered. “There’s a window at the top of the stairs letting all that light in. At least, there isn’t a single yellow light bulb swinging from a wire. We’re doing good so far.”

“You’re already acting nicer than Marissa did,” he commented.

“How so?”

Gavin marched up the stairs ahead of her and started working on the lock. “She didn’t like this place at all. I renovated it a few years ago for the owner, so I thought it was fine, but she didn’t like it.”

“I bet nothing at all would have made her happy if what she wanted was to live with you.”

“Maybe,” he said as he cracked the door open.

When Lindsay saw inside, she was pleasantly surprised. The ceiling was higher than it should have been to account for the towerish look the outside had, though there wasn’t much floor space. There was a little U-shaped kitchen. One side of it had a little counter space and then the stove. Then there was a little more counter space and then the sink. The other side of the U was a length of counter that had the majority of the cabinets under it. There were only shelves over the counters.  

There was a breakfast nook that was an old booth from a restaurant that had been repurposed. It was nailed down beside a window that had a view of the bay and marina. Lindsay looked out and saw the colorful houseboats docked in the water.

“Wait a few weeks and the sea lions will get here,” Gavin said, coming up behind her. “They like to sun themselves over there in the fall. They wail all night. I hope they don’t bother you with their bellowing.”

Lindsay laughed. Like a miracle of nature such as sea lions were going to bother her. She was going to be happy with the chance to see them up close.

He snorted because he didn’t believe her. “There isn’t much else to the apartment. There’s a bedroom up those stairs, a linen closet, and a bathroom.

Lindsay looked around. The kitchen and the dining room were best friends with each other and there wasn’t much space to spare. “No living room?” she asked.

“No. Before the renovations, the space where this booth is now was the living room, with a couch and a coffee table, there was only room for two people to sit comfortably. With the booth, you can seat three, which was a pretty big improvement at the time. Plus, with the old design, there was no room for this sweet little entryway.”

Lindsay hadn’t seen it before because Gavin had been in the way, but there was indeed a line of hooks to hang coats and a bit of the wall had been cut away for a person to store at least three pairs of shoes.

“Oh! That’s good.”

“You’ll just have to entertain your guests at the booth,” he said dryly.

“Yes, because I’m going to have so many people up here,” she droned sarcastically. “This is already leaps and bounds better than a hotel room. I have a stove! I’ve never had a stove before. I’m gonna make cookies.”

“Wonderful,” he said drolly. “As your landlord, I tax cookies. One in every six. Got it?”

Lindsay giggled.

He pointed through a doorway. “Wanna check out the bathroom?”

Lindsay followed him into the bathroom, which was nicer than she expected. Naturally, there was no bathtub, but the shower stall was less oppressive than others she’d seen in small apartments.

They moved to the bedroom, which was the largest room in the apartment, though still not large. There was enough room for a double bed if she wanted one and a dresser. Immediately, she knew she’d get a single mattress and use all that spare room for a bookshelf and the wall space for a TV… eventually. She would have to save up some money. How many things could she buy with the money she had?

She started making a list. She needed a mattress, a bed, a dresser, a mirror, bedding… etc.

“Will it do?” Gavin asked from his position at the door.

“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “It will be great. I love it. Let’s go shopping. I’m so glad you’re willing to take me and that you have a truck. I bet we’ll be able to get everything today. It’s so handy that the dining room has that booth. Now I don’t have to worry about getting furniture for that space. No living room makes it easier too. I’m so thankful for all this, Gavin. You gave me a job and you’re letting me stay here.” She was getting teary, thinking of how she’d given up trying to be an actress and how many people had told her no… Having someone tell her yes was undoing her at the seams.  

She’d always dreamed of a place of her own, hoping one day her acting gigs would pay enough to get her just this much, but it never worked out. But now, looking down on the bay, she could not have asked for more.

Gavin smiled and looked like he would have hugged her, but instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Let’s go get you a bed.”

---

Chapter Five

If He Washes Clean Dishes…

Gavin stood at Lindsay’s new kitchen sink and she watched him wash her dishes that may or may not have needed washing.  They were straight from the store.  She was wiping out the cabinets.  

“When Marissa lived here, did you do a lot of dishes in this sink?” Lindsay suddenly asked.

“No.  This is only my third or fourth time up here since I finished the renovations,” he said stiffly.

“That makes it sound like you and Marissa didn’t date for that long.”

“We dated for three years.”

“What?” she exclaimed.  “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly.  “From our first date to last night, it was almost three years.”

Lindsay licked her lips and bit back her words until she couldn’t anymore.  She opened the fridge and started wiping that out too.  “Care to tell me more about that?”

“It started when she asked me on a date and I said yes.  Then she asked me on another date and I said yes again.  Then there was a lot more of that.  Then one day, a friend of mine said something about my girlfriend.  I laughed and said I didn’t have a girlfriend.  Very politely, he reminded me that I had been dating Marissa for over a year.  I couldn’t believe it.  Our dates had meant so little to me that I hadn’t even realized that everyone thought we were a couple.  I had never phoned her up for pleasure and asked her out.”

“She flew that low under your radar?” Lindsay wondered out loud.

“She took me places where it felt like I was only there because she needed a plus one.  I thought she was just using me as her spare, but after my friend said that, I started to wonder if she was waiting for me to do something to take our relationship to the next level.”

Lindsay was so enthralled with his confession that she closed the fridge before she finished cleaning it and leaned against it, so she could listen to what Gavin was saying without interruption.

“Had you kissed her?” she asked.

“Yeah.  Many times, but I’d never taken her home with me and I’d never gone home with her.  Our kisses were like kisses under the mistletoe, kisses when the New Year’s Eve disco ball drops, and then on her doorstep when I said goodnight.  I was thinking, ‘She likes this, we’re adults, and this is nothing!  It’s a kiss, not matching funeral urns.’  I didn’t attach too much importance to it.”

Lindsay sidled closer to him, leaning against the countertop.  “You must be a very reserved person, or you weren’t very attracted to her.”

He scoffed.  “Probably both.”

Lindsay had actually been making a move on him by inching toward him and saying those things, but it had gone over his head.  She didn’t let that discourage her.  She was still a ragingly attractive woman even if this particular man did not find her so immediately.  

“What was year two like?” she persisted.

“I outright asked her if she wanted anything more from our relationship than just the casual date every month or so.”

“What did she say?”

“That she wanted to marry me and have my children.”

“She didn’t!” Lindsay gasped in horror.

“She did.  I told her I didn’t want anything more than casual dating.  It was a heavy blow for her, but she said she’d take what I had to offer until she met someone better.”

“She didn’t meet anyone better, did she?” Lindsay ventured.

“No.  She didn’t.  She spent the next year trying to figure out a way to get me to drop my guard, change my mind, and take her in.  The biggest thing she did was get me to rent this apartment for her so she wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Victoria if we were out late.  Our dates were far more frequent at that point.  I got this place rather than have her stay over with me.”

Lindsay put the pieces together and was horrified at the picture they made.  “So that means that it doesn’t matter why I was at your place this morning.  There is no reason under the sun that a woman would be at your house in the morning without throwing a javelin through Marissa’s heart?”

He stepped away from the sink.  “Exactly.”

“Are you going to tell her the truth?  That I was there because I was a stubborn mule?  Because I wouldn’t stay at a hotel?  Because Oliver and I were in a car accident and you had no choice but to help me out?”

He chuckled coldly.  “There is no excuse for letting you stay that won’t make her blood boil.  You think you were stubborn?  You think you put me in a bad spot last night?  Think for a second.  We’re talking about a woman who wasn’t just bringing something like the cheap logic you brought last night, she was bringing everything.  She was offering to cook for me, clean my house, get the oil changed in my truck, and make love to me twice a day until death do us part.”  He laughed again before meeting Lindsay’s eyes.  “And if I wanted to fight you last night, I definitely could have made it so that you were not sleeping in my bed last night.  So, no.  I’m not going to explain it to her.”

Lindsay was hot now.  Maybe she’d been wrong about her flirtation going over his head and he actually liked her a lot.  Maybe she just hadn’t spotted it because he was a lot more sullen than the kind of man she normally categorized as her type.  The look in his eyes was sending hot shivers down her arms.

But he looked away crossly.

She took a couple of steadying breaths.  “When you broke up with her, what did you say?”

“That I’d been trying to put her off.  That beard I had last night?  I’d been growing it for almost two years and I hadn’t trimmed it once.  I heard her say once that she didn’t like men with beards, so I grew one.  When it started to come in thicker, she kept her peace.  When it got so long that it aged me twenty years, she started asking me to cut it, but I wouldn’t.”

Lindsay groaned.  “Wait a second!  So, you’re saying that even if I hadn’t answered your front door like a little trollip in your shirt, Carleen would still have had something devastating to report to Marissa?  That you had finally  shaved your beard?”

“Unfortunately,” he admitted reluctantly.  “Although, obviously, I was not expecting Carleen to show up on my doorstep with all that crap.  I had not given Marissa any of that stuff as gifts of affection.  One of the things in the box was a can opener.  I gave her my spare because hers broke.  That’s all there was to it and she returned it like she couldn’t bear to have it in the house because every time she saw it, it would remind her of me?  A can opener?  Good grief.”

“So, last night, you told her that you’d been trying to put her off?” Lindsay asked, trying to get him back on track.

“Sorry, I missed something.  About a month ago, she moved out of here and gave me an ultimatum.  If I didn’t do something to move our relationship to the next level, she was going to end it with me.  I thought that was the end of our relationship, hence Oliver thought it was all right to offer you this apartment.  Yesterday, I got a text from her saying that she was sorry she had moved out and she wanted to talk to me.  Afraid she would try to move back in, I went to Victoria to get the keys and have it out with her.”

Lindsay waited for him to continue, tense.  It suddenly mattered to her which way the wind had blown during that conversation.

“I told her that I never wanted a romance with her and I don’t understand why she wanted to be with me so badly.  The whole thing did not go well, but I stood my ground, got the keys, and made it clear to her that there was no need for the two of us to ever speak again.”

Lindsay hopped up on the clean countertop.  “That sounds conclusive.  Do you know why you weren’t attracted to her?  Did she have an annoying laugh or an unbearable habit?”

He shook his head.  “I should have liked her.  Everyone liked her and everyone was confused when I didn’t.”

“Well, no one can force you to be in a relationship,” Lindsay said factually.  “Though I am interested in what made you want to set her up in this apartment.”

He looked around.  “It was for me.  I’m not good at arguing after midnight.  It was so she wouldn’t sleep at my house, so I wouldn’t have to drive her home, and so she could get a change of clothing without being annoying.  She only lived here on weekends.”

“And you kept on kissing her?”

“I did… I even kissed her last night,” he admitted with a shrug.

“When you left?” Lindsay wanted to know.

“No,” he corrected.  “When I got there.  I couldn’t have helped it.  She sort of shot herself into my arms.”

By this point, Gavin had circled Lindsay.  She was perched on the counter and he had slung the dish towel over his shoulder and now he was leaning over her with one hand on either side of her thighs on the countertop.

“Did you kiss Oliver yesterday?  I noticed you didn’t today.”  His head was blocking the light behind him.

“Uh, I broke up with him yesterday, when he crashed the car.  I don’t know if he’s acknowledged that I dumped him, but he hasn’t texted me today even though I sent him a couple of messages asking if he was okay.”

“You know, a month ago he told me he was bringing you here to set you up with me,” Gavin said.

Lindsay’s mouth hung open.  “That can’t be true.”

“That’s what he told me when I told him Marissa had left.  Then he called me two days ago to say that it was all over because he had decided to keep you for himself.”

Lindsay rolled her eyes.  “He’s not doing a great job of that.”

“No.  He isn’t,” Gavin said, his smolder up to bruising intensity.

Lindsay wanted him to kiss her.  She wanted him to tell her that he was about to kiss her and that it would be nothing like how he had kissed Marissa.  When he kissed Marissa, it had been placid and dull, but when he kissed Lindsay, it was going to be so hot, it would crack lava out of the floor.

To her disappointment, he broke eye contact and moved away.  

She was an actress and prone to the dramatic.  Of course, he wasn’t going to kiss her.  Of course, he was going to wait until he knew her better, and when it was clear that her relationship with Oliver was over.  It also wasn’t a good policy to make out with someone the day before they started working for you.  He wasn’t going to lay a finger on her.  

“Let me show you where to meet me tomorrow morning,” he offered as he ditched the dish towel and stood in front of the door.

“Yeah,” Lindsay agreed, hopping off the counter and following him.  

---

Chapter Six

If He Can’t Keep His Eyes Off You…

They strode along the length of the bay, walking by the water instead of by the street and Gavin showed Lindsay the back loading zone for the hotel, where they’d meet to start work in the morning.

“What are you going to have me do?” she asked pleasantly.

“I’m going to have you help me remove all the drywall in the bathrooms.  It will be messy.  Come prepared to get messy.”

She nodded with relief.  She could help with that.  That was nothing.  

On the way back to 999 Things to Wear, Gavin asked her if she wanted to stop at one of the restaurants they passed for fish and chips.  

They went inside and the first thing they saw was Oliver.  He was shooting pool at a table using his cast to rest his pool stick on as he set up the shot.  Lindsay’s eyes darted around trying to see his best friend, Ricky, but all she saw was a blond bombshell who was at least three inches taller than Oliver.

“I thought I saw your truck outside,” Gavin said as he approached the two of them with a smile.  He took Lindsay by the elbow and brought her closer, “Ricky, this is Lindsay.  Lindsay, this is Ricky.”

“Richenda,” Ricky corrected, bouncing her curls over her shoulder.  “Everyone keeps thinking I’m a guy when they hear me called Ricky without seeing me.  I’m so tired of it!”

Lindsay burst out laughing.  

“What?” Ricky defended.  “I’m a hairstylist and sometimes men make appointments.  They think they’re going to get their hair cut by a cute guy with a flirty smile and they get me.  They didn’t want their cut by a woman.  I mean, I do a good enough job that they aren’t mad in the end, but I was definitely not what they were expecting.”  She huffed.  “I’m sure you get the picture.”

Lindsay got the picture a lot better when Oliver joined them, though not the picture Ricky had painted.  Lindsay had never thought of Oliver as a shrimp, but he looked like one next to Ricky.  She was taller than him with wider shoulders and more muscles.  When Lindsay shook hands with her, she felt like her bones were hollow while Ricky’s were made of lead.  

Oliver looked uncomfortable.  

“And what about you?” Ricky said, booping Gavin on the nose.  “I can’t remember the last time I saw this much of your face.  If you’re beardless, then the queen must be dead.  Long live the queen!” she chorused.

“Ugh.  I was being a baby,” he said offhandedly.

Lindsay smiled at Gavin, acknowledging his latest escapade.  So… he had seen Ricky’s truck outside, bet that Oliver was inside with Ricky, and decided to cut through the pretenses by having them all meet sooner rather than later.  She favored him with a wild grin.  Maybe he liked her so much he was planning on breaking a few conventions.

Not only that, but Gavin didn’t look like a lightweight beside Ricky.  He was a hairbreadth taller than her and whether or not he was as solid as her was unclear due to all the layers he was wearing.  

“Do you have a table?” Gavin asked, still friendly.

“Yeah, that one,” Ricky pointed.

“We’re hungry.  Enjoy your game,” Gavin said, again taking Lindsay softly by the elbow and leading her toward the booth.  

Oliver and Ricky’s dirty dishes were still on the table and Gavin stacked them as naturally as if he was in his own home.  The waitress was there in a flash.  She knew Gavin well, so she took their orders and cleared away the dirty dishes.  

“Do you come here often?” Lindsay asked, sounding stupid, but so stupid it was funny.

“Of course.  I have lived here all my life and I’ve worked in the bay all my adulthood.  Of course, everyone knows me.”

“And everyone thought you were dating Marissa for the last three years?”

“She was territorial,” Ricky interjected, abruptly sliding into the seat next to Lindsay.  “She kept all the good girls away.”

Before Lindsay could remark on that Oliver and Ricky came back to the table to join them.

“Oh, you’re finished playing.  Who won?” Gavin asked.

“I won!” Ricky burst before Oliver had a chance to answer.  

He sat next to Gavin with a shrug that showed his bound arm.  He put his sling back on.  

“It doesn’t matter that he’s in a cast.  I always win,” the blonde bombshell said proudly.

Lindsay sat back and looked at Oliver.  Considering the way he had leaped from the truck to get to Ricky’s, it was now obvious that he was enamored by her.  He had undoubtedly been so for many years, probably since they were teenagers.  It was all so obvious why he couldn’t get anywhere with her.  She dwarfed him, made him feel like a little boy, and outperformed him at things he felt he should have excelled at.  

One look at Ricky and Lindsay knew she had actually never had a chance with Oliver.  If he was still pining for Ricky when there were so many obstacles, and they’d spent so much time together and then so much time apart, he might never get over it.

“Well, that settles it,” Lindsay said, looking directly at Oliver.

He made a face that she knew meant, ‘Wait a second.’  

Their food came and they talked pleasantly of the things they did with their lives.  Oliver talked about their improv class and mentioned all the plays and TV appearances Lindsay had had.  He kept talking her up like she was something special.  Hearing his praise all lined up like that felt deceptive.  For one thing, he made it sound like she had actually had a life as an actress.  Nothing felt further from the truth.  She had parts, but she didn’t make money and she was getting too old to couch surf because she couldn’t afford a place of her own.  

“Let’s not talk about that anymore,” she said softly after Oliver had already told all the best bits.  “I’m going to rip up drywall tomorrow and I’d rather not think about all that old stuff.”

“But you–”

“Look, Oliver, you’re a doll and everything you’ve said has been so sweet, but I don’t know if you get what my coming out here was about.  I know we talked about it and I said some things that were meant to cover my embarrassment, but I didn’t make it as an actress.  I’m not taking any more classes.  I came out here to get a job and make a life.”

He was confused.  “But you love your family.  Why are you leaving them on the mainland if you love them so much?”

She scratched behind her hairline.  “I wasn’t able to make it as an actress, but I was hoping I could make it as a person.  Do you know what that means?  While I was trying to be an actress, do you know how much money I took from my family?  Loads.  An uncomfortable amount of money.  For a long time, I thought that eventually, I’d make millions and so their support would not go unrewarded.”  She cast her eyes downward and reminded herself that she had planned to have this conversation with Oliver once they reached the island and if Gavin understood her situation, then it was all the better.  As for Ricky listening to her over-the-top confession… Lindsay had been an actress and the content of her speech didn’t even touch some of the embarrassing things she’d done repeatedly on stage.  So, she continued explaining without a hitch in her voice.   “Last year, I started realizing that my paychecks had not been going up.  I made the same amount of money last year as I made the year I was eighteen.  I’m twenty-six.  It’s time to give up.”

“So, you’re not going back to the mainland with me after the hotel is finished?” Oliver asked.

“No.  At the very least, I’m not taking any more money from my family.  I’m going to stay here and prove to myself that I can be a responsible adult.”  She turned to Gavin.  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me with the apartment, taking me shopping today, giving me a job, and for last night.”

That was a slip-up.  Lindsay was used to adding a slight sexual innuendo to everything she said because she had to be recklessly and relentlessly outspoken when she did improv.  She regretted it immediately as Ricky piped up.

“What happened last night?”

“He picked the two of us up when I wrecked my car,” Oliver supplied dryly, squashing the innuendo.  “Remember, Ricky?  I think he deserves a thank you.”

Lindsay nodded her agreement.

After Gavin and Lindsay had finished eating, Oliver stood up and announced, “I’m going to walk Lindsay home to her new apartment.  I’ll be back in a few.”

Lindsay stood up and took the keys to her apartment from Gavin.  He gave Lindsay a smile, reminded her where and when she was supposed to meet him in the morning, and Lindasy and Oliver left the two of them at the table.

Once outside, Lindsay and Oliver had a lot to say to each other.

“Why didn’t you tell me Ricky was a woman?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to give up acting?”

Lindsay groaned.  “Who cares?  I don’t care anymore.  I don’t even care that you are clearly in love with that woman.”

“What?  I’m not,” he cried defensively.

“Yes, you are.  So what if the relationship has no future?  So what if she thinks you’re white bread?  So what?  You love her whether it’s a good idea or not.  And what about me?  You were bringing me here with the intention of setting me up with your brother?” she accused.

“Uh… Yeah, I did that.  He’s a really good guy and that woman he was with was not good for him.  When he told me he’d finally shaken her off, I thought you might have fun with him.”

Lindsay put her head back and howled in a mean way.  “So, you and I weren’t a good enough match from the start that you were orchestrating a fling for me?”

“Well, not a fling,” he denied.  “But something.”

“How could it be anything other than a fling if you thought I was going to go back to the mainland after the renovations were finished?”

“Oh,” he said, stopping dead in his tracks.  

She felt like she had driven her point home.  “Who am I to you?  Someone who can just be passed around to any guy who’s down on his luck?”

“Lindsay, that sounds fifty shades worse than what I was thinking.  Gavin is a gentleman and he would never treat you or any other woman the way you are suggesting.  He has family values.”

Lindsay pushed her Coke bottle red hair off the back of her neck.  “I’m not actually mad at you.  I just want to make one thing clear.”

“What?”

“I just want to ask you something.  Were you ever serious about me?”

Oliver looked at Lindsay and the moment stretched.  Finally, he said, “When I’m with you, I wish I was.”

She exhaled heavily, not even aware that she had been holding her breath.  “Thank you.  So, can we be friends?”

He nodded.  “On one condition.”

“What?”

“I want you to let me kiss you one more time.”

She cocked an eyebrow.  “Why would I agree to that?”

“Because I like messing with things and I won’t do it unless it can help me with Ricky, can help you with Gavin, or can help Gavin with Marissa.”

Lindsay dropped her head on her left shoulder like it weighed twenty pounds and thought about his suggestion.  “Hm… I…”

“Just say yes.”

“It sounds deranged.”

“It is, but if you can make me look like a stallion in front of Ricky, or I can make Gavin jealous for you, or I can take you out of the picture for Marissa because she’s going to kill you because you got too close to my brother, it might all work out.  I won’t do it just for fun.”

“Why are you making plans for Gavin?  He doesn’t even like me.”

“Oh, yes, he does.  He couldn’t keep his eyes off you.”

---

Chapter Seven

If He Stands His Ground…

The next day, Lindsay weaved her dark flame-colored hair into numerous braids and ate breakfast by herself.  For work, she dressed up in an old concert tee, some jeans she would have rather not wrecked, but she had traveled light from the mainland and she needed the job more than she needed the jeans.  Construction work paid more in an hour than the price of the pants.

Gavin greeted her at the loading dock and took her down the hall to their first bathroom.  The tub, sink, and toilet had already been removed and they were pulling down all the drywall.  He gave her a facemask, safety goggles, and a pair of work gloves.  

They ripped the old drywall loose together and then she carted the remains in a wheelbarrow to the dumpster bin in the back of the hotel while Gavin tore out the ceiling.  

The time went by quickly, and soon it was time for lunch.  They went to a grocery store and bought sandwiches there.  She was going to buy strawberries and cantaloupe instead of a sandwich, but Gavin stopped her.  

“You can have that if you want, but you need to put fuel in your body if you’re going to work alongside me.  Get a sandwich.”

She chose one, but it was a little deviled egg sandwich on multigrain bread, unlike what he bought, which was a sandwich that had been built inside a loaf of French Bread as big as the Bastille.  

In the afternoon, Gavin gave her a hammer and had her remove all the loose nails, while he took care of other things.  

By five in the afternoon, she was completely bushed.

When she took her mask and goggles off, she found Oliver leaning against the railing by the bay water.  He hung his cast hand over the rail and waved his good hand at her in greeting.  “Hey,” he said pleasantly as she approached.

“Is Ricky working?  Is that why you’re here?” Lindsay asked.

“Yes.  She’s working.  But she loaned me her truck if you have any more errands that need to be run after yesterday.”

“Hmm…” Lindsay contemplated.  “Actually, yes.  I could really use a trip to a thrift store.  We went to one yesterday, but I didn’t get everything I was hoping for.  I was told there are dozens of them here on the Island.”

“There are,” he agreed.  “We can do that.  Do you need to buy any more groceries?”

Lindsay nodded.  “Yes.  I bought the necessities when I was out with Gavin yesterday, but I wasn’t thinking about baking and you’ll never guess what I have.”

“What?”

“An oven,” she said, gloatingly.  “I’ve never had an oven in my life.  I’m gonna make cookies and cupcakes and…”

“You’re going to have me over, right?”

“Sure.  Except I don’t have a couch.  You can come over as long as you don’t mind sitting at the breakfast nook, which I only got to keep because it’s attached to the house.”

“That’s handy.  Can we go now, or do you need to tell Gavin that you’re clocking out?”

“Oh, he already told me to leave and go have a shower.”

“Do you want to do that before we go shopping?” Oliver offered.

She made a face.  “Now that you mention it, I don’t have any towels.”

He put his arm around her.  “We need to go now.”

☂☂☂

Lindsay and Oliver skipped the thrift store and went for the towels first.  Then they stopped at the grocery store on the way back.

“Are you going to make me dinner?” Oliver asked as he carried two bags with his good hand up the long flight of stairs that led to Lindsay’s apartment.  

“If you’re cool with avocado toast for dinner, then yes.”

“I’d love that,” he answered as they came into the apartment.  “Ricky is working late.”

They were greeted inside the apartment by a blonde woman screaming.  She shrieked as if surprised and then calming down enough to form words, she wailed in alarm, “What are you doing here?” She looked between Lindsay and Oliver like they couldn’t possibly be robbers with groceries.

Oliver smiled his smile that was all charm and no sleaze. “Excuse us,” he said sweetly. “But you are the most beautiful squatter I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not a squatter!” she yelped.  She was surprised and upset at being barged in upon, but her temper made her cheeks rosy and pretty.  It wasn’t what she looked like that made Oliver compliment her.  Oliver was the type of man who would have said that to a bag lady.

“Well, you’re standing in Lindsay’s kitchen,” he pointed out.

Lindsay dropped her bag of flour and flicked him in the ear.  She had never seen this woman in her life before, but if she was willing to bet (and she was), Lindsay knew who it was.  “This is Marissa, Gavin’s…” she wanted to say ex-girlfriend, but the sight of Marissa in her apartment made Lindsay stop.

“Fiancee,” Marissa filled in the blank.

Lindsay would not have finished the sentence that way, but Marissa became about a thousand times more interesting when she finished it that way.

“Umm… Well, this apartment was in Gavin’s name and it was empty. He said I could live here until the lease expired. Is there going to be a problem with that arrangement?” Lindsay asked, keeping her voice simple and light.

“Are you…” Marissa started, looking at Oliver.

Lindsay wasn’t sure which way Marissa was going with that, but she didn’t let her finish.  She had to keep the conversation on neutral facts.  “This is Oliver, Gavin’s brother. I guess you two haven’t met.”

“Sorry, I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said, letting a little sleaze ooze. “I’ve been on the mainland for the last three years.”

Marissa nodded. “I remember now. I’ve seen pictures of you at your mother’s house.”

“And I’m Lindsay,” she said, trying to figure out how to explain the situation further or get Marissa to explain what she was doing there when she had already moved out. “So… is there a problem with me bringing the rest of my stuff up?”  The towels were still in Ricky’s truck.

Marissa didn’t answer.  She bit her lip like she didn’t know what to say.  In truth, she was perfectly lovely.  From Gavin’s description, Lindsay had not been expecting perfect loveliness. She had been expecting someone ordinary. Marissa was older than Lindsay, approaching thirty, but it didn’t stop her from being exceptional. She had short hair that was shaved up one side and bleach-blonde curls topped her well-shaped head. Her purse was a work of art. Marissa dived into it to retrieve a tissue to blot her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Lindsay said, rushing to help the other woman.

“Nothing. It’s just… I misunderstood. I was told something that was clearly wrong. I didn’t know Oliver was in town or that he brought a girl with him.” She finished dabbing at her eyes. “Everything is fine.”

Lindsay rather objected to being called a girl. It was that woman’s way of putting her in her place by making her sound lightyears younger when she was three years younger at the most. Lindsay was about to voice her feelings when she glanced at Oliver.

He was suffering.

Lindsay smirked and bit her lips together to stop herself from laughing. Marissa was acting teary and Oliver longed to pull her in his arms and comfort her. Lindsay had seen it many times, not just with herself, but with other women in their actor camp. He was an incurable sucker for a crying woman. His jaw clenched tightly as he held back.

Lindsay wanted to correct Marissa’s second misunderstanding. Yes, Carleen had misunderstood when she dropped Gavin’s things off at the cabin. She saw Lindsay in a nightgown and Gavin’s shirt and she had jumped to conclusions, but now Marissa was jumping to another conclusion that was just as wrong. She thought Lindsay was there as Oliver’s side piece because that made her happier than to think that Gavin had replaced her so easily.

Lindsay was about to open her mouth to explain that everything this woman thought was wrong when Gavin reached the top of the stairs and joined them in the now suffocating kitchen.

“Whoa!” Oliver said, moving so his brother could get the door open. “Hey man, we’re just meeting your fiancee.”

“My what?” Gavin said, carrying a hex wrench case and peering over Lindsay’s shoulder to see Marissa standing by the stove.  He’d clearly come to help her assemble the dresser they’d bought.

“Hi, Gavin,” she said with the air of a woman who had unfinished business and she was about to finish it. “Your face looks good, without the beard.”

He nodded at her, and said stiffly, “I didn’t see your car downstairs.”

“My sister dropped me off.”

“Why? It’s over an hour's drive back to Victoria from here and there isn’t a bus until tomorrow morning.”

She looked at him meaningfully. It was a trap. He had walked into the apartment and fallen into it.  Not that the exact details of the trap mattered so much. If he hadn’t been there at that moment, she would have simply called him and told him she was there. From her perspective, he wasn’t going to be able to leave her alone in an unfinished apartment until the next bus came. When he took her home, she’d have a whole hour to talk to him and he would simply be a monster if he sent her home in a cab.

The look on his face was monstrous, and Lindsay could see he was running scenarios through his head as to how to orchestrate avoiding the conversation she wanted to have.

“Are you going to Victoria?” Lindsay chirped, smarter and faster than he was. “If you’re going, we should all go on a double date. I haven’t been to any of the spots in Victoria since I got to the island. What restaurants are good?”

“That’s a terrific idea!” Oliver joined in. He slipped his arms around her waist and drew her into a back hug. Lindsay knew he did it partly to annoy his brother, but also to double the amount of available floor space.

“Yeah. I bought four plates, but can you see the four of us having dinner here? We’d be cramped like sausages! Let’s go out!” Lindsay and Oliver looked at Gavin with encouraging smiles.

At long last, Gavin seemed to figure out what the two of them were offering. If they all piled into his truck, he wouldn’t be alone with Marissa and he could avoid the conversation if he desired.

“Sounds fine to me, as long as the two of you keep your PDAs to a minimum,” he grouched.

“I make no promises,” Oliver said, tugging on the edge of Lindsay’s ear with his canine.

She shrieked with laughter. Gavin frowned and held open the door for Marissa, who allowed herself to be guided down the stairs and out the door.

Over Oliver’s commotion, Lindsay heard Gavin whisper to Marissa, “I didn’t know you still had a key.”

“The door is broken,” she replied. “If you know how to fiddle with the lock, it opens every time.”

“I’ll have to get that fixed,” he grumbled, annoyed by everything.

The ride to Victoria was joyful. Oliver kept pinching and tickling Lindsay. If the conversation lagged, her squeals kept the truck noisy and intimate conversation impossible. To Marissa’s credit, she was not a wet blanket. She immediately fell into a rhythm where she treated Oliver like he was her younger brother as well as Gavin’s. She even threatened to sit between Oliver and Lindsay if he didn’t keep his hands to himself. He responded by pinching Marissa’s side, and she enjoyed it twice as much as Lindsay did.

“I love being tickled,” Lindsay said. “If I didn’t love it so much, he wouldn’t do it.”

“You do sound like a puppy when you laugh,” Oliver agreed.

Gavin placed his rear-view mirror so his eyes didn’t see the road behind them, but Lindsay. She sat directly behind Marissa. It was a different kind of flirting, completely different from Oliver’s pinches and giggles, but effective nevertheless. She found herself getting warm under his gaze. It made her scream louder when Oliver tickled her.

At the restaurant, a beautiful building called the Stone Steakhouse, Marissa reminded them to be well-behaved as they went in. “I’m not sure you two are mature enough for a place like this,” she cautioned.

“These people handle drunks all the time,” Oliver said. “I’m sure they can handle us stone-cold sober.”

Lindsay remembered the two drinks he had before he crashed her car and felt like getting rowdy with him for an altogether different reason. “I swear, Oli, if you cause another car accident, I’ll…”

“Break up with me?” he taunted. “Go ahead. You can break up with me as many times as you need to. And don’t call me Oli.”

“Why?” she asked with her arms crossed sternly.

“Try saying my name properly. Oliver,” he demonstrated for her.

“Oliver,” she repeated.

“Now that you’ve practiced, you can try saying it at level two. O..”

“O…” she said obediently, expecting a gag at the end.

“Lover.”

Lindsay choked on a laugh. “O-lover?”

“Yeah. Sounds perfect when you say it like that,” he chuckled as he opened the door to the Stone Steakhouse for her.

Once in the restaurant, there was no need for conversation. The place was a cacophony with too loud music playing on the speakers overhead, and since they were dining late, the place had a more adult crowd than it would have had a few hours earlier.

Oliver tried to be charming and make jokes and Lindsay encouraged him, but it was completely impossible once their food arrived. Lindsay was exhausted and the food in her stomach had been too long coming. At the least, she should have shoved one of the bananas they bought in her face before they left to go to Victoria. It made her a ravenous beast once their food arrived. She felt sick eating so much so fast.

Afterward, they drove quietly to Marissa’s. A little folk tune played on the truck speakers, and Oliver and Lindsay were too tired and full to behave like teenagers. Instead, Lindsay sat in the middle seat and placed her head on Oliver’s shoulder, which he offered her like a champ.

Gavin got out of the truck and helped Marissa out of her side and walked her to her door. On the porch, their hour-long conversation was condensed into five minutes. Lindsay and Oliver sat tense, watching.

“They broke up and now she’s advertising that she’s his fiancee?” Oliver asked grouchily.

“It appears so.”

“That’s some nerve.  Do you feel shaken?” he asked her.

“By what?” Lindsay asked.

“Are you bothered? Weren’t you and too-cool-for-school, Gavin, going to start dating yourselves?” he reminded her.

Lindsay smiled. “The more appropriate question is whether or not Gavin still wants to date me after our tickle fight.  That might have been too much for a normal person to endure.  However, I’m not normal and I’m not shaken by this.  You think I can be bothered by this, their third breakup?”

“You’re not?”

“No, but I am curious. What do you think they’re saying?”

In perfect time to Marissa’s lips, Oliver supplied her voice. “Gavin, I just love you so much. Why can’t we be together?”

Lindsay took over when Gavin started talking and tried to do his voice. “I can’t be with you. I like all women, and I can’t settle down with just one.” Lindsay giggled.

“But not having sex with you is the greatest pleasure I’ve ever known,” Oliver said, and he said it so on point with Marissa’s lip movements that Lindsay died laughing on the spot and missed her cue.

She put her forehead on the seat in front of them and howled.  She turned to Oliver.  “We need to interrupt them.  Wanna chase me around the truck?”

“Didn’t you say you were worried he’d be mad about the tickle fight?  And we’re going to do more?”

“I think it’s more important that their breakup takes root than that I get together with him.  He’s still my boss.  I’m not supposed to be dating him in the first place.”

“I see.  I’m game.  Can I kiss you?”

“If you can catch me,” she said, getting out.  

From the glances that Lindsay had seen of the doorstep where Marissa and Gavin were talking, Marissa was doing everything in her power to get Gavin to come inside with her and he was resisting.  He kept pointing to the truck and saying things.  Probably things like, “I have to get these two home.”

However, they disrupted everything when Lindsay and Oliver started running back and forth around the tiny garden and the front step of the townhouse. Lindsay weaved in between Gavin and Marissa and Oliver clearly had an idea that was even better than kissing Lindsay.  As he ran past Marissa for the second time, he pretended to trip and in the next second, he landed an accidental (but totally on purpose) kiss on Marissa’s lips.  

He pulled off her and said, “So silky,” before he shot off to run after Lindsay again.

When he got to her she slapped him across the chest.  “What are you doing?” she thumped, pretending to be cross.  “You can’t just kiss your brother’s fiancee like that.  You have to apologize.”

Always in the mood for chaos, Oliver leaned in toward Lindsay.  “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology,” Lindsay said, playing it up.  “I don’t care if you kiss her or not.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Okay.  In that case…” he grasped the hand of the flustered Marissa and pulled her toward him for a second, intentional, kiss.  

Marissa allowed it for a whole three seconds before she pushed him off, but she was so flabbergasted that she didn’t say anything.

Lindsay stormed over and said, “Well, if you’re going to do that, then I’m going to do this.”

Lindsay grabbed Gavin by the collar and was about to kiss him when Marissa launched herself between them.  

“You can’t,” she panted, red in the face and dizzy from so many things happening at once.

Gavin and Oliver stood by tensely and watched what Lindsay would do next.

Marissa’s arms were spread wide, so Lindsay put her hands on Marissa’s shoulders and said to her in a calm, loving way, “I get it.  I understand all of this is hard for you.  It would be hard for anyone.  Oliver was acting crazy just now.  We all know there’s nothing going on between you and Oliver.  There’s nothing going on between Oliver and me and there’s nothing going on between Gavin and you.”

“That’s not true.  He…”

Lindsay cut her off.  “Whatever he did that made you think that the two of you had a future, you’re going to need to forget it now.  I plan to renew the lease in that apartment and I never want to see you inside my apartment without an invitation again.  Do you understand?”

Marissa shook off Lindsay’s hands.  “You don’t get to decide any of that,” she barked.  “Gavin, tell her that we’re just having a little fight and you’re going to need the keys to the apartment back in a week.”

Gavin stepped forward and stood beside Lindsay.  “No.  I gave Lindsay that apartment and I’m not asking her to leave.  She’s going to renew the lease and there’s no reason for you to ever go there again.  You got off easy tonight when we took you to supper and drove you home.  This is the last time I want to talk to you, Marissa.  It’s over.”  He turned to Lindsay and Oliver.  “You two, get in the truck.  We’re leaving.”

Marissa walked steadily after him citing things he had said that meant that he really loved her, but from Lindsay’s perspective, they were things that meant the opposite.  She tried not to listen.  It was too hurtful.  When they finally drove away, all three of them sat in the front with Lindsay sitting in the middle on the bench.  She plugged her ears so she couldn’t hear what Marissa yelled at Gavin.  It was too upsetting even for a dramatic actress.

---

Chapter Eight

If He Locks You Up…

Gavin drove back to 999 Things to Wear.  Oliver got out, got Lindsay her towels out of Ricky’s truck, wished them a good night, and drove off with a wave.

Alone at last, Gavin told Lindsay what Marissa had told him about the lock on her door, and sure enough, everything she said about the lock was true.  It was completely broken.

“There isn’t a hardware store open at this time of night,” he said, bummed.  “I don’t think you should stay here tonight.”

Lindsay didn’t wait to hear a list of possible places she could stay.  “I don’t think there’s going to be a problem tonight.  There wasn’t a problem last night.  Didn’t Marissa stay here for months knowing that the lock was broken?”

Gavin growled and then made his argument.  “Yes, but she  knows it’s broken, she knows you’re staying here, she knows what time I got here and that there aren’t any hardware stores around here that will be open at this time of night.  The fact that she came here this afternoon to look at the apartment worries me.  Worst of all, she may be angry with you for confirming all those terrible, but true things I kept telling her.  She had her sister drop her off here this afternoon, but she has her own car.  She could already be on her way here to terrorize you.”

“Fine with me.  I’ll deal with her when she gets here,” Lindsay said stiffly.

“You think you can handle her?” he said like he was accusing her of something awful.

Lindsay laughed.  “Of course, I can handle her.  I’ve been working as an actress for years.  Do you know how many times I’ve had my hair pulled out, had my drink doused with something to make me vomit, and been bitched out by a woman every bit as angry as Marissa?”  Lindsay stuck her nose in the air.  “Marissa has no reason to be angry with me beyond what I told her.  If she comes here, I won’t make the same mistake again.  I’ll send her over to your house instead.  The question is not whether or not I can handle her.  Can you?”

He groaned.  “I swear to you, I’ve been more assertive than how it appears.  I have been extremely straightforward with her.  She just hasn’t been willing to take no for an answer.”

“I bet you do something dumb to treat her nicely after something like this, don’t you?” Lindsay observed.

“Like what?”

“Like sending her flowers with a note that says ‘Sorry for our fight’.”

He paled, confirming her accusation.

Lindsay clucked her tongue.  “You do that?  You’re as dumb as her.”

“I want to be a nice guy,” he said defensively.  Before Lindsay could criticize him more, he changed the subject.  “Look, I’m going to go to the hotel and pilfer a doorknob and a lock.  I’m sure there’s something like that in the supply room.  I’ll be back to change the locks, so expect me.”

“Sure thing,” Lindsay said as she refrained from telling him again what a bonehead he was.

Once he was gone, she got into the shower.  She hadn’t had one since before they got to the island and she was looking rough.  

When she came out, she found Gavin had let himself into the apartment and was changing the locks as he promised.  She wore an oversized black T-shirt and gray cotton pajama bottoms.  She patted her hair dry with one of the new towels she and Oliver had bought that afternoon.

“Thanks,” she said.

He finished up and stood up to check the lock.  “My pleasure.”  Once he was convinced it would work, he closed it and locked it. He turned to face her.  “Can we talk?”

Lindsay nodded and sat down at the window nook.  

“What’s going on with you and Oliver?” he asked, sitting across from her.

“Nothing.  He’s just flirty.  He keeps talking about kissing, so I think he’s feeling a little lonely.  Has he ever kissed Ricky, do you know?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think he may be looking for opportunities to kiss women in crazy situations.  He said something to me the other night when we finished our break up that he wants to kiss me one more time.  He gave dumb reasons, but I think he might be hoping to gear up to kiss Ricky.  He’s terrified to kiss her.  What would the consequences for that be if she doesn’t like him back?  If he’s been kissing everyone beforehand then he can just claim that he’s a kissing fool who kisses everyone.  It didn’t mean much.  Something like hiding the most important kiss of his life in a pile of other kisses.  Who can tell which is the important one?”

“You think that’s why he kissed Marissa tonight?  That was insane.”

“I didn’t notice you scolding him,” Lindsay chuckled.

“I don’t care if he kisses her.”

“I think he kissed her both to warm himself up to do something crazy and so that she could kiss someone other than you.  She probably can’t even remember that it’s possible for her to match with a man other than you.  He was doing her a favor, but if he keeps this up, he’s gonna get mono.”

“Oh, he’s already had it,” Gavin confirmed with a hilarious head wag.

Lindsay smiled, her good nature spilling over her smile.  “Well, if that’s all you wanted to talk about… Thank you for the lock. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

She stood up and he followed her.  “Wait,” he said, reaching for her wrist and holding her back.  “There is one more thing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.  If Marissa hadn’t gotten between us, would you have kissed me?”

Lindsay nodded.  “Naturally.”

“I felt a little cheated that you didn’t,” he confessed softly.

She pursed her lips and looked up at him with a curious expression on her face.  “Really?  I was sort of glad she stopped me.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked and Lindsay felt the pressure on her wrist slacken.

“Yeah.  If I had my first kiss with you then and there, in front of Marissa, it would have been a gag.  I would have spent the whole kiss thinking about her and what expression was on her face.  How shocked was she?  Did her jaw drop?  It would have sucked because then I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy our first kiss.  When we kiss for the first time, I want it to be on a day when you didn’t see Marissa.  You didn’t think about her.  I want it to be on a day where you only thought about me.”

She gave him a wicked little smile and she knew she’d got him.  Hook, line, and sinker. She’d taken his breath away.  

His eyes sparkled with excitement and his warm hand flipped her wrist in his.  He kissed her on the back of her hand like she was a lady and he said goodnight before disappearing out the door.  

☂☂☂

In the morning, it was raining again.  Lindsay hadn’t yet bought a raincoat or an umbrella.  She was considering running through the rain to get to work.  It wasn’t that far to the hotel, just down the street.  She pulled the hood on her sweatshirt over her hair and went down the stairs to the door to the street below.

That was when she stopped in her tracks.  The door wouldn’t open.  She locked it and unlocked it three times and rattled it like a mad person.  Why wouldn’t it open?

Annoyed and angry that she was proving herself to be unreliable, she sent Gavin a text explaining that the lock he’d given her was faulty and she was trapped in the stairwell.

She told herself that she wasn’t to blame.  She wanted to lead a responsible life as an adult and it was high time she did, but the discouragement of the situation got to her.  She really wanted to be on time for work, do a good job, and… She supposed she was lucky her boss had been the one to change the locks.  Nothing could have been more convenient.

He sent her a text back that he was on his way over.  

He knocked when he arrived, but she couldn’t open the door for him.  

He phoned her, sounding cheerful over the line.  “Hey.  Having a good morning?”

Lindsay snorted.  “Got any ideas on how to work this out?”

“Sure do.“

---

Chapter Nine

If He Rescues You…

Gavin’s brilliant idea to open the stuck lock involved throwing an umbrella with a rope attached to it up to Lindsay.  She opened the window, popped out the screen, and put out her arms to catch it.

“This is a dumb idea, Man!” she shouted down to him.

“Yes,” he agreed, standing under her window like Romeo in broad daylight.  “It is a dumb idea, but once you catch the umbrella, you’ll have a rope that runs from me to you.  Then I can tie a toolbox onto the rope and you can pull it up.  Once you have the toolbox, you can get out a screwdriver and remove the screws holding the door knob in place and BOOM, the door will open.”

He heaved the umbrella, and it was high enough that Lindsay should have been able to catch it, but she didn’t.

“Why are you throwing an umbrella again?” she asked, putting a frazzled hand to her forehead.

He caught the falling umbrella and said, “It’s not going to hurt anything if it hits a window.  It won’t scratch a single thing it touches.  It’s a good shape for throwing and it’s got a bit of weight to it, so it can carry up the rope.  Try again now.”

Lindsay put out her arms, but she missed again.  

“Come on, Sweetie,” he called encouragingly as people coming out of the bakery eyed him suspiciously.  “Catch the birdie.”

Lindsay got it on the fifth throw.  

She may not have been great at sports that involved catching, but she was fine with a set of tools in her hands.  She got the screws in the lock undone and opened the door.  

Gavin stood outside with a replacement knob in his hand.

“Is that another reject from the hotel?” she asked crabbily.  

He nodded.  

“Well, what good is that going to be when this one was a dud?” she asked.

“I’ve been standing here testing it while you unscrewed that knob.  I… uh… I think it may have been my fault that it didn’t work right.”

She put it in his hand.  “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Nah… I did some work on the door jam as well because I… uh… I was a little uncomfortable with you staying here if the lock didn’t work.”

Lindsay eyed him suspiciously.  “Can’t we just buy a new lock?  Or better yet, get the landlord to buy a new lock?”

“That would be ideal, but I know him and he’s a snowbird who has already flown to Mexico.  If I called him, he’d just get me to fix it.”

“What are you saying?” she asked, thinking that maybe none of what he was saying had anything to do with the lock.

“I’m saying I had a lot of fun making you breakfast that morning that you stayed at my place and if you stayed with me, I could make you breakfast again.  That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about Marissa coming back here to terrorize you.”

Lindsay leaned in.  “You’re asking for a sleepover?”

He leaned in to meet her.  “Yeah.  I’m asking you to spend the night at my place.  It’s a Friday.  There’s no work tomorrow.  How about it?”

“Are you planning on sleeping on the couch again?” she asked cautiously.

“Of course.  We haven’t even kissed yet.”

Lindsay scratched her head.  “Gavin?  What about Marissa?”

“What about her?”

“You didn’t want her staying at your place.  Why are you so cool with me staying over and not with her?”

“Obviously because I wasn’t interested in her.”

“But you’re interested in me?”

He nodded.  “Now you’re getting it.”

She nodded along with him, making them two idiots who were nodding at each other outside a clothing store.  

Finally, she clucked her tongue and said, “I’m not staying over.  If you’re worried, you can come over tomorrow morning to check on me.  I’ll make you breakfast.”

“Okay,” he said, stepping past her and preparing to fit the new knob into the lock.

“You’re sure that one is going to work?”

He smiled.  “Yep, the last one didn’t work, but this one will.”  

Lindsay leaned against the wall and watched him put it together.  Unless she was crazy, his words weren’t just about the lock, they were also about him and Marissa.  His relationship with Marissa hadn’t worked, but he believed a relationship with Lindsay would work.

That was a charming idea.  She loved that idea.

Her phone rang.

Lindsay looked at her phone.  It was a call from her sister.  She showed Gavin the call and stepped around the corner to talk to her sister.

“Hi, Sharelyn.  How’s it going?”

“Hi, Babe,” her sister drawled.  The sound of the drawl did not signify coolness.   Her sister was cool, but the elongation of her syllables was a sign of hesitation.

“Something’s going on,” Lindsay stated.  

“Yeah, so Mom told me that she gave you five hundred dollars to move to the island to start a new life and that you told her that you’d have that money back to her by the end of the month.  Well, she needs it and any other money you can spare.”

“Why?  I thought she was doing okay.”

“There was a cash call on her condo.  They need a new roof and she thought she had more time to raise the money.  She doesn’t.  She says you have a job and a place to stay.”

“Wait.  I don’t understand.  She told me about the cash call.  She said she was going to get a line of credit to pay for that and that she wouldn’t miss the five hundred.”

“Yeah, except the bank wouldn’t approve her for the whole amount.  She needs like three thousand to top it off and she needs it by the end of the month.  So, how’s it going?  Do you have any money you can spare?”

Lindsay felt her blood freeze in her veins.  What was happening was one hundred percent her fault.  Over the years, she had taken more money from her mother than the whole cash call of ten thousand.  If she had been a responsible adult who paid her own expenses instead of being a stupid dreamer, her mother would have the money without needing a line of credit.  

Lindsay wanted to scream for a year.  “Uh, I have two hundred in my bank account.  I’ll send that much to Mom when I hang up with you.”

“You don’t have to send it immediately,” her sister said, her every word making her sound less like the big bad wolf.

“Yeah, I do.  If I don’t, I’ll spend it.”

“Really?  What will you spend it on?”

“Food.”

Sharelyn groaned.  “I don’t want you starving.”

“Listen, I’ll send her what I have, but I can’t talk right now.  I have to get to work.” Lindsay said a quick goodbye and got off the phone.  She bit her lips together.  It was her fault.  It was all her fault.  

She breathed and tried to think of what she could do.  She hadn’t worked enough days to have earned three thousand dollars.  She wouldn’t have it by the end of the month.  

She breathed again and that was when she noticed the sign in the clothing store window.  Help wanted.

Lindsay was not dressed like she knew how to dress.  Her hair was not done up like she knew how to do hair, but she looked inside.  She could work weekends.  She could work evenings.  She could work every second when she wasn’t working for Gavin.

She inhaled and exhaled and made a plan.  

The clothing store, 999 Things to Wear was not open at eight-thirty in the morning.  It didn’t open until ten, but Lindsay could walk home during her lunch break, change, and pop into the store to ask about the job.  

When she came back around the corner, Gavin had finished installing the door knob.  He held out the keys to her.  “Is everything okay?”

“Yep,” she lied.  “Everything is great.  But why are we standing around here?  We’ve got to get to work.”  She grabbed Gavin by the arm and hurried him down the street to the hotel.

He gave her a funny look, but he didn’t ask her any more questions.

---

Chapter Ten  

If He Notices You Working Two Jobs…

Lindsay did get the job at the clothing store.  The woman who hired her was a middle-aged woman who hadn’t quite taken notice of what decade they were living in.  At least, her clothing choices were anything but trendy.  Everything about her was outdated, but when she gave Lindsay a tour around the store, it was clear she did know what she was talking about.  Her name was Amy and she liked the idea of Lindsay working there because Lindsay wouldn’t have to park her car anywhere near the store and parking by the marina was a chore and a half, so she was onboard.  

Lindsay’s work schedule was set so that she would work Thursday and Friday nights, and then all day on Saturday and all day on Sunday.  

She was planning to do her training that night (Friday night), after work.  Gavin seemed like he wanted to ask her out when they left the hotel at the same time at the end of the day, but Lindsay blew past him before he could say a word.  She cheerfully shouted, “See you tomorrow,” and hecked off.

He got into his truck with a confused look on his face.  He didn’t know where she could have to be in such a hurry, but she was in a wicked hurry.  

She had drywall dust in her hair, so she needed to have a shower and shove some food into her mouth before she worked a three-hour shift.

The saddest thing about working at the clothing store was that it wasn’t much money.  She was making more money working for Gavin, but she needed all she could get.

The second saddest thing was that she didn’t know how she was going to afford groceries after she sent her mother her last two hundred dollars.  She did a search on her phone for a local food bank, but there wasn’t one nearby since the marina, where she was living, was an off-the-beaten-track tourist spot.  

She still had a few groceries in her apartment.  She’d be okay for a week.  After that… she wasn’t sure.

When her shift at 999 Things to Wear ended, she was more tired than she had ever been in her life, though she did feel blessed that she didn’t have to commute somewhere in the rain when she was finished.  

It had started raining again.  

It was only two steps to her apartment.  

She didn’t need an umbrella.

Lindsay went up to her apartment, made herself two slices of toast with butter and honey on them, and poured herself a glass of water.  

She was lucky she had enough food to feed Gavin breakfast the next day like she promised.

☂☂☂

By the time Gavin showed up at her place on Saturday morning, Lindsay was already ready to go to work.  Her hair was done in curls, her makeup was done (she even had on fake eyelashes), and her clothes were her best.

“Uh…” he stuttered as he took in her appearance.  “Is all that for me?”

“Don’t I look healthy?” she asked with her nose in the air.  “Like I wasn’t attacked in the night by your ex-girlfriend?”

“You weren’t, were you?” he responded with wide eyes.

“I was not,” she reassured him.  

He took off his coat like he was right at home and hung it up on one of her hooks.  “Excellent.  What are we having?”

“Avocado toast.  Just like mother used to make.”

“My mother didn’t make avocado toast.”

“Of course,” she laughed.  “Mine didn’t either.  No one’s mother made that.”

“Hilarious,” he said.  He noticed how much work was left to be done in the kitchen and, seeing it was hardly any, he sat down in the dining room nook.  “I just want to tell you that you don’t need to doll up like that for me.  I see you at work all the time with dust in your hair and grime on your face and I think you look fine.”

Lindsay leaned her elbows on the counter and peered at him.  “That’s very sweet, but this isn’t actually for you.  I took a job downstairs working at the clothing store and I start at ten, so we’d better start eating so that I can be on time for work.”

He looked at her incredulously, astonishment all over his face.  “You took another job?”

“Yeah,” she said, attempting to keep her voice light.

“Because the backbreaking labor I put you through Monday to Friday just wasn’t enough for you?”

Lindsay was tempted to lie to him, to blow him off, to fudge over the situation, and not tell him what was happening.  But it wouldn’t work.  Even if what she told him ruined her chances with him, she needed his understanding more than she needed him to be in love with her.  

“Uh…” she said softly.  “Do you remember what I said about having borrowed money inappropriately while I was trying to be an actress?”

He nodded.

“Well, all that has come back to bite me.  I’m low on cash and I need to repay some money soon… By the end of the month.  The more I have, the better, so I took another job.”

He took in what she said and then he stood up to speak to her on the other side of the counter.  “Are you sure you have to?  Working for me is going to take it out of you and you need a day off.  Aren’t you sore from all the grunt work I have you do?”

She was sore, but she had already shared all she was willing to share with him.  “I’m fine.  I didn’t complain yesterday.”

“You’d complain if I worked you too hard?” he asked sincerely.

“Absolutely,” she lied with clear eyes and not even the tiniest hint of self-pity in her voice.  It was times like that that being a trained actress really came in handy.  She was the best liar in the world.

She handed him a plate and told him to sit down with a little shooing motion.  She picked up her plate and joined him, offering him a glass of orange juice.

He looked at her sideways.  “What are your plans after work?  Can I make you supper?”

“Uh…” she said, hesitating.  She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell him that she was planning on working all day Sunday as well.  It would come up if he didn’t get her home at a decent hour.  She was about to give him a well-crafted excuse when she remembered her grocery problem.  Until she paid her mother back, she had to accept any invitation that promised food.  The little breakfast she was making Gavin had to be the last time she cooked for anyone until her debt was repaid.  With that thought, she smiled and said, “Yeah, I’d love that.”

He was suspicious of her, but he let it go.

They flirted as they ate.  She kicked him out at a little before ten and then she went down for her shift.  She worked until five.

Gavin picked her up.  She pulled out the elastics and pins that were holding her hair up, reapplied her lipstick, and hoped that she looked date-ready.

He took her back to his place and made her steak with french fries and salad.  It was delicious.  Afterward, they sat on the couch to watch a movie and Lindsay was so tired, she fell asleep without voluntary control.  

Gavin put her head on his thigh and did not wake her.  She was trying too hard.  Even Lindsay, though she was asleep, knew she was trying too hard.

---

Chapter Eleven

If He Finally Stands Up For Himself…

In the morning, Lindsay woke up on the couch in Gavin’s living room.  The alarm on her phone was ringing and someone was knocking on the front door simultaneously.  

Gavin was nowhere to be seen, but Lindsay would be damned if she was going to answer the door at his house a second time.  

It turned out to be unnecessary.  Gavin was awake, dressed, and answering the door like someone who was well-rested and ready to go.

Marissa was at the door.  Lindsay heard her say, “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but I need to talk to you one more time.”

“This has to be the last time,” he said, his voice apologetic.

“That’s fine.  I just need to have a frank conversation with you.  I just need to lay it all out on the table.  Can I come in?”

“If you insist,” he said.

If Lindsay had been smart, she would have taken their conversation at the door as a cue that she should get out of the living room and literally go anywhere else in the house.  Except she only had enough time to stand up before Gavin led Marissa into the living room.

The blonde woman stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Lindsay.  “She spent the night again?”

“I know you’re not comfortable with this situation, but I have to tell you that Lindsay and Oliver were goofing around the day we took you back to Victoria.  She’s not with him.  She’s with me.”

“And you let her spend the night?” she asked again in horror.

“Yes.  I did.”

Marissa stared at him.  “You never let me spend the night.  Why her?  What’s so great about her?  Why did you shut me down?” she blurted angrily, obviously past caring if she looked pathetic.  She was so desperate for answers that it didn’t matter anymore who saw her at her worst.  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know,” Gavin said softly.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said again, raising her voice.  “If I didn’t do anything wrong then why didn’t you love me?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin said, keeping his voice low and steady.  “I don’t know why I didn’t want you, not really, and not ever.  I don’t know.  There’s nothing wrong with you, except that I didn’t.  I’m sorry.  I don’t have a better explanation.”

Lindsay did not want to be there.  She did not want to be in the middle of Gavin and Marissa as they had their last talk.  She checked her phone.  If she had been at her apartment when she woke up, she would have had plenty of time to get ready for work at ten, but since she was at Gavin’s, she had much less time.  She hadn’t even told him that she was working that day.  

She sighed and found Oliver’s number on her phone.  She put it to her ear.  Gavin and Marissa were still dramatizing their break-up as Lindsay waited for Oliver to pick up the call.  

When Oliver finally picked up the phone, he answered with a cheerful, “Hey, Beautiful.”

“Hey, O-lover,” she called back, hoping that her playfulness won points with him.  “Listen, I stayed the night at Gavin’s, but Marissa is here and they’re having a row.  I’d sell tickets, but I took a job at the clothing store under my apartment.  I have to be at work by ten.  Is there any chance you could borrow Ricky’s truck and give me a ride back?”

“Your head must be splitting open,” he remarked dryly.  Apparently, he could hear the two of them going at it in the background of the call.  “I’ll be there in a jiffy.  But I need a favor in return.”

“At this moment, I would promise you my firstborn child,” she agreed.

“Great.  See you soon!”

Lindsay hung up to see that she had somehow managed to get Gavin’s attention during his fight with Marissa.  

“Who did you just call?” he asked.  Since he was angry with Marissa, he was directing that anger toward Lindsay.

“I called Oliver.  I can’t be here.  I need to be at work by ten.”

“You’re working today?” The anger had not dissipated.

“Yes.  I have to work today.”  She put her fingers in her hair.  “Do you think yesterday’s shower will hold or do I need another one?”

“Wait.  Why are you working so much?” he blurted, holding his hand in Marissa’s face as though his hand was capable of asking his ex-girlfriend to wait.

Lindsay rolled her eyes.  “I told you.  I have lived an irresponsible life up until now and it is time to pay the piper.”

“But if you work this much, you’ll be no good to me tomorrow at the hotel.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said, making her way past the two quarrelers and arriving at the front door.  She stuck her foot in her boot and did up the laces.  “You won’t notice a thing.  I’ll work just as hard as before.  After all, you’ve been so kind, making sure I had enough to eat last night and letting me sleep as long as possible.”

“Wait.  You were concerned about not having enough to eat?”

Lindsay winced.  Leave it to him to pick up on that part of her dialogue.  “No. No.  It was just nice of you to make dinner last night for me.”

“You made her dinner?” Marissa howled over Gavin’s shoulder.

He put his hand in Marissa’s face a second time.

Lindsay got her second boot on and reached for her coat.  “Listen, I’d love to talk more about this.  It’s just that you’ve got your own problems right now.  How about you clean your own house before you tell me how to clean mine?” She pointed at Marissa as if she couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of his criticism.  “If I don’t work well enough for you on Monday, make sure to tell me.  I can’t lose that job.”  She opened the front door.

“When do you finish work tonight?” he asked, putting a hand on the door to stop her from closing it in his face.

“Five.”

“Can I call you?”

“Of course,” she said pleasantly.  

As Lindsay predicted, Oliver was coming around the corner in Ricky’s truck.   He pulled into the pine needle driveway.  Lindsay ran up, turning briefly to wave at Gavin before yanking the door open and vaulting into the truck.  She waved again from the passenger seat.

That was the best moment of that morning.  Gavin stood on his front porch, watching Lindsay disappear from sight.  The look on his face was annoyance, helplessness, and discouragement.  And Marissa was there to see it.  She stood next to him, eyes on his face.

Maybe she finally understood what Gavin had been telling her.  She never had a chance with him.

---

Chapter Twelve

If He Begs You To Kiss Him…

“So…” Lindsay said to Oliver.  “Do you have a plan of what you would like me to do for you in exchange for this ride?”

He gave her a sideways glance and a playful smile.  “I do.”

“What?” Lindsay asked curiously.

“I want you to act out a scene with me.”

Lindsay scoffed.  “Yeah, what kind?  Under what circumstances and for what audience?”

He smiled and explained.  “I want a kissing scene.”

“I should have guessed,” Lindsay said with an eye roll.

“Listen, it will be perfect.  Here’s what I want you to do.  Tonight, when you get off work, come to the salon.  It’s just down the road from the clothing store.  Ricky is doing a dye job for a regular client who has no time during the work week, so she’ll be there.  I’ll text her the words, ‘I’m outside’.  When I see her through the window, I’ll tap my leg.  That will be your cue.”

“My cue to do what?”

“Act like Marissa.  Act like you’re Marissa and I’m Gavin and you can’t stand for me to dump you.  Throw your arms around me and kiss me and I’ll let you down gently.  Then…”

“Then what?” she asked, giving him a sideways glance.

“I’ll go inside and explain to Ricky that she’s the only one for me,” Oliver said gravely.

“You’re sure you can do that?” Lindsay asked skeptically.

“I have to,” he groaned.  

“Really?  After all the time you’ve known her and loved her and all the time you’ve gone without saying anything to her, why have you got to say something to her now?”

“I’ve been offered an acting job,” he answered.  “It’s for a comedy sitcom that’s being filmed in Vancouver.  I have to give them an answer tomorrow.  If Ricky says yes, she loves me, I’ll stay.  If she says she doesn’t, I’m going back to Vancouver… And if I ever come back, I won’t be staying at her place,” he said under his breath.  

Lindsay didn’t reply, but let his resolution take form in her head.  “If you promise me that you’ll confess to her afterward, then I’ll do it.  Gavin won’t like it though.”

Oliver looked at her when he should have been watching the road.  “Did something happen with you two last night?”

“Nothing.”  Lindsay pushed his temple with her index finger to make him face forward.  “Don’t crash,” she said gently before she leaned back in her seat.  “Nothing at all.  I was so tired, I fell asleep on his couch and he was nice enough to leave me there.”

“Then Marissa came over this morning?”

Lindsay sighed.  “I’m so done with those two.  I can’t be Gavin’s girlfriend if he can’t get her out of the picture.”

“Do you mean you’re going to punish him for seeing  her? Just for seeing  her?” Oliver asked incredulously.  “Isn’t that a little harsh?”

“I’m going to punish him whether he deserves punishment or not.  I have a really big problem.”  Lindsay had not had the guts to tell Gavin in detail what was really going on with her mother and her sister and the money they needed, but she had no problem telling Oliver.  She told him everything.

“So you need to try to raise three thousand by the end of the month?” he asked, scratching his head.

“My mother and Sharelyn are working on it too.  I just have to work as hard as I can and as long as I can until then, so I can give as much as possible.  So, I won’t have much time to play lovers-in-love with Gavin until it’s sorted.  Plus, if he hears about the little scene I’m doing with you in front of the salon, his feelings for me will undoubtedly cool.  You don’t think I’ll be unlucky enough for him to see us?”

“Why would he be at the marina at five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon?”

“To pick me up from work,” Lindsay suggested.

“Hmm… Let’s hope he doesn’t show up.”

Oliver pulled up in front of 999 Things to Wear.  

“Thank you so much,” Lindsay said as she swung down from the height of the truck.  “I’ll see you at five,” she promised before she ran into her apartment to freshen up before work.

Lindsay thought about the whole mess as she changed her clothes and sprayed her hair with dry shampoo.  

She really didn’t have a choice.  

She couldn’t have made  Gavin leave Marissa to take her back to work.  He needed to do everything possible to sever that connection and Marissa would not be satisfied with anything other than an all-out, do-or-die, fight.  And who was Lindsay to get in the way of that?  She wasn’t Gavin’s girlfriend.  They hadn’t even kissed!

She had to call Oliver to save her that morning and get her to work on time.  He was the only other person she knew and she couldn’t expect him to do another thing for her for free, even if he was borrowing Ricky’s truck.  It wasn’t his, but it was something he could use that she couldn’t.  If he wanted her to help him with his little problem with Ricky in exchange, she had to follow through.  He wouldn’t be able to help her with anything if he took the acting job and went back to the mainland.

Besides, kissing Oliver wasn’t that big of a deal.  He was cute.  He was fun.  He was lovable in a way that would never last.  Lindsay knew the way their scene would go when she saw him later.  She just hoped that she would be lucky for once in her life and Gavin would be anywhere else.

☂☂☂

It was lucky for Lindsay that she liked clothes.  If she hadn’t liked clothes, the time she spent at 999 Things To Wear would have been unbearable.  As it was, she was okay.  She could keep going.  She could do the shift.  

At lunch, she locked the front doors and put up a back in five minutes sign.  Then she hopped up to her apartment where she unceremoniously scarfed a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  It was her first meal of the day.  She already knew from experience that when you start chopping meals, you chop breakfast first.

Then she rushed back to the shop and went back to folding shirts for the table displays.  The people who came in for two seconds always managed to mess them up.

At five, Lindsay was feeling the opposite of great, but instead of forcing herself to look on the bright side, she let herself feel the hopelessness she had refused to let herself feel since she’d gotten the news about her mother.

If Oliver left and if Gavin was angry with her for not being available in the coming weeks, if she didn’t have enough money to eat, and if she had to work all the time… What would her new life on the island look like?  She rolled her eyes and then rubbed away the dampness that had mysteriously appeared at her nose instead of in her eyes.  

Everything that happened was all her own fault.  All of it.

She wiped her nose.

Only babies felt sorry for themselves, but it was okay if she felt sorry for herself just then. She had to go act out her scene with Oliver and the unhappiness she felt naturally would help her make the scene more convincing.  

It was going to be the last scene she ever acted out so she wanted to do a good job.

She locked up 999 Things to Wear at five and sorrowfully sauntered toward the hairdressers.  From quite far off, she saw Oliver.  He was leaning against Ricky’s truck.  Lindsay saw him text Ricky and wave to her inside the shop.  Lindsay saw him turn toward her and rub his leg, the way he said he would to indicate the start of the scene.

It was show time.

Quietly, Lindsay jumped up on the stoppers to stop people from pulling up too close into the parking spaces.  It was only five inches up in the air, but she treated it like a trapeze rope and came toward him.

The look on Oliver’s face was odd, like he was expecting something different.

“Hi,” she said breathily as she arrived at the stopper in front of Ricky’s truck.  “I was hoping I’d see you here,” she said, letting the corners of her mouth droop unhappily.

“I’m here,” Oliver said briefly.  If he was trying to be Gavin, Lindsay supposed he was doing a good job.  Sometimes he didn’t say much.

“I don’t want us to be apart,” she said softly, looking into his eyes like her heart would break.  “Please change your mind,” she reached up to put her hand on his shoulder.

He looked sideways and then took an abrupt step backward… Out of her reach.  “No,” he said, not looking at Lindsay at all.  “This isn’t what I want.”

What was he looking at?  

Lindsay looked around.  Ricky was watching from the salon window, but that wasn’t where Oliver was looking.  Lindsay followed his eyes and saw Gavin leaning against a wall by a set of stairs that led down to the water.  

“Lindsay,” Oliver said, looking down at her with a different expression than she’d ever seen.  Perhaps for one moment in his life, he hadn’t been thinking only of himself.  “I can’t screw up this thing you have going on with Gavin.  I want your help with Ricky, just maybe not the way I had been planning.  I think I want something else.  Come on.”  He grabbed her hand and hauled her over to where Gavin was.  “Come with us,” Oliver called to his brother.

“Where are we going?” Gavin shouted back.

“You’re going to be my audience,” Oliver announced cheerfully.

He hauled both of them into the beauty salon.  Ricky’s client was gone and she was organizing a cart with a collection of bottles on it.  

“Richenda,” he said, not calling her Ricky.  “We need to talk and I need these two idiots to watch.”

Her eyebrows lowered like she did not like the look of what was about to happen.  “Did you total my truck?  Is that why you need people here?  So I can’t kill you without witnesses?”

“No,” he said, acting like a real man.  He only said one word, but Lindsay was impressed.  He didn’t normally act like he was in charge like that.  It only got better as he kept talking.  “I am in love with you.”

Lindsay grabbed Gavin’s elbow as she needed something to hold onto as the scene unfolded.  

“I have been in love with you as long as we’ve been friends,” he said bluntly.

Richenda’s lips parted and her jaw hung open.  “You’ve… What?”

“I realize that all of that is dishonest and cowardly,” he said, having to look up to look to hold her gaze.  “I kept quiet because I can think of a million reasons why I would want to be with you, but I can’t think of any reasons why you would want to be with me.  I’m shorter than you,” he said, addressing the elephant in the room without hesitation.  “You’ve always dated men who were taller than you and I didn’t feel like I could possibly measure up.”

Richenda looked around the room uncomfortably.  “I have never been asked on a date by a man shorter than me,” she admitted.

“Well, here I am.  I’m shorter than you and I’m asking you on a date, but I have to warn you that if you let me take you out even once, I’m going to want a lot more than anyone has ever wanted on a first date.  I’m going to want to hold your hand the whole time.  If I am not holding your hand every moment of this date, I will feel horribly cheated.  If I’m not holding your hand, then I want my arm around your waist.  I’ll want you to look at me,” he continued.  “I feel like I have watched you look at other men all the time I’ve known you and I’ve had enough.  I want you to look at me and I want the ‘friend’ facade that you and I have built to be blown apart.  I can’t be your friend anymore and I can’t stand for you to look at me like that anymore.”

“I thought you only wanted to be friends,” Richenda said helplessly, overwhelmed by everything Oliver was saying.

“If you walk by me after a shower wearing only a towel and look at me like I’m your kid brother one more time, I’ll lose it,” he confessed noisily.

“You’ve never acted like it bothered you,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well, I’m an actor.  I’ve been acting all the time we’ve been friends.  But I’m through acting.  From now on, I’ll never act in front of you again.  From now on, I’m not going to pretend anything.  I want you and my heart will break if you won’t give me a chance.  Will you go on a date with me and let me shower you with all the love I’ve held inside?”

Lindsay was only watching, but her breath caught.  

Richenda’s eyes cut to Lindsay and Gavin.  “Do those two have to be here for this?  Can’t we talk about this privately?”

“No.  They’re here to support me.  They can leave after you give me an answer.  I’m sorry to put all this pressure on you.”  Oliver’s face really was sorry.  “I shouldn’t have let it get to this point, where I’m boiling over in this way, but it is what it is.  Will you go on a date with me?”

She put a hand to her face, bringing her hairdresser’s apron up to cover her mouth and her flushed cheeks.  “Uh… Yes.  Let’s go on a date.”

Oliver stepped forward and put his arms around her carefully, like she was a treasure, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Gavin put his hand over Lindsay’s on his elbow and said softly, “We’ll just let ourselves out.”

Gavin was pulling on Lindsay, encouraging her to leave the scene, but Lindsay couldn’t stop watching.  

Richenda was kissing Oliver’s forehead, then his cheek, and finally down to his lips.  She saw him get the kiss he was waiting for.

---

Chapter Thirteen

If He Walks With You By the Sea…

Gavin was flustered as he led Lindsay away from the hair salon.  The scene they’d just witnessed had an effect on him and Lindsay was surprised that his reaction was clearly negative.

“What’s the problem?” Lindsay asked as they walked.  “You don’t have a problem with Oliver getting together with Ricky, do you?”

“Uh,” he hesitated.  “No.  That’s fine.  All the power to him.  Great.”

If anything, Gavin’s words really drove home that his tone was off.  

Lindsay sighed.  “Did something more happen with Marissa after I left?”  That wasn’t what she wanted to say, but she had enough self-control not to say, ‘Did Marissa find some way to emotionally blackmail you after I left?’  

“Nothing much.  I let her talk it out.  I let her say what she wanted to say.  Then I said what I had to say.”

“And then she said what she wanted to say some more?” Lindsay volunteered.  She almost hoped she sounded disappointed with him.  Yet, how he behaved wasn’t exactly disappointing.  If she were in Marissa’s shoes and she wanted closure that badly, she’d be more grateful to the man who gave it to her than anyone.  Except, she was on the other side of the fence, so she wanted Gavin to be more decisive instead of understanding.  His continual understanding attitude was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

“I bet you’re really sorry now,” Gavin said between set teeth.

“Sorry that I left you alone with Marissa this morning?  I didn’t have a choice.  I told you…”

He interrupted her.  “No.  I bet you’re really sorry that you didn’t do more to hang onto Oliver.  If he has feelings like that and can make a speech like that…  You looked really moved.  Were you sorry he wasn’t saying those things to you?”

Lindsay laughed.  “No.  I was just proud of him that he was able to make a great scene like that.  I’ve acted with him on many occasions.  He’s been my partner for all kinds of acting.  We took an improv class where we had classes that were basically just us daring each other as to which one of us could say the most outrageous thing.  So, he’s said all kinds of bananas things to me.  So… he has  said stuff like that to me before about how he loved me and couldn’t be without me.  That he would die in pain and misery if I didn’t let him smell my hair.  He didn’t mean any of it.  When he was talking to Ricky, he meant what he said.  It was beautiful to see the change in him.  I’m really grateful he asked us to watch.”  Lindsay smiled at Gavin and pulled his arm closer to her so they were walking very close together.

“Do you want me to make a speech like that?” Gavin asked soberly.

She shook her head in the negative.  “You’re mad at me. Even if you don’t think you’re mad at me right now, you’ll be mad at me soon.  I need to neglect you.  I’d be unhappy if you gave me your whole heart and I needed to give it back immediately because I had to go to work.”

“How much money do you owe?  Will you be squared away by the end of the month?” he asked.

She shook her head in the negative.  “I don’t know how long it will take.  But now that you mention it, I’m a little heartbroken myself.”

“How did I mention something that made your heart break?” Gavin asked cautiously.

“It’s just that I wanted to be an actress so badly,” she said with the ripping of her heartstrings in her voice.  “I wanted to say things on stage that melted the hearts of the people who watched.  I wanted to change their minds, make them think differently, give them a lift, give them a buzz, and… If I could be at the center of all that… I wanted to be a lead actress.  Even though that dream felt so real I could almost touch it, it was just a dream.  It was a dream given to me by other performers.  It wasn’t something I could do… I was so stupid.  And I took too much money from my mother.” Lindsay sobbed with pain.  “That’s who I’m trying to pay back.  She wanted to believe in my dream too.  She thought that if she didn’t give me the money, she wasn’t a good  mother.  I let her think that because I wanted what I wanted.  I was wrong.”

Gavin stayed silent by her side as they kept walking.  He turned her and led her toward the docks.  

“More than anything,” Lindsay said, going on.  “I think I wanted to be Oliver when he was talking.  You know, be someone who loved someone else more than I loved myself.  Now I want to love my mother more than I loved my dream of being an actress.  It was amazing how he put himself on the line like that.  I want to do that too.”

“Are you thinking of moving home to help out and be closer to her?”  Gavin leaned against the rail over the water and looked at Lindsay’s face searchingly.

“Oh… No!” Lindsay admitted urgently.  “If I went home, she’d say things that would get me to change my mind.  She doesn’t think she’s suffering from the loss of the money or anything.  It was my sister who called me to tell me the situation.  My mother never would have called me.  But I know her.  I know the things she says, the things she thinks.  If I went home, my mom would find auditions for me to go on and I’d fall back into the same hole I was in before.  I can’t go back.”

“Wanna save some money by moving in with me?” he offered, but it seemed more out of politeness than anything else.

She smiled at him and chuckled.  “You’re already paying my rent.  I don’t want to take more help from you.  You’ve already helped so much and I really want to learn to stand on my own.  But, if you’re curious,” she said, feeling daring.  “I am wildly attracted to you.  If it wasn’t for Marissa, we would have already had our first kiss and our first makeout session in your truck.  I would have kissed your face in a spare moment at work and I would have told you how you check all my boxes—even mystery boxes that I didn’t know I had.  She’s such a turn-off.”

Gavin grumbled.  “How long will it be before there’s enough distance from that?”

“I don’t know, but I told you.  I want our first kiss to be on a day when you don’t see her and you don’t think about her.  It has to be on a day when you only see me and only think about me.”  Lindsay took a deep breath of bay water.  “Now you have to take me home.  I need a nap.”

“I want to meet you for supper,” he said.  “My treat.”

“Not until eight though.  I want a solid REM cycle,” she told him, yawning and a thousand percent ready for bed.

---

Chapter Fourteen

If He Gives You His Umbrella…

Lindsay woke up from her nap.  She was still tired, but she didn’t want to feel sorry for herself.  She was about to go out for supper with Gavin and she had no fear that he wouldn’t pick up the bill at the restaurant at the end of the night.  Back when she lived in Vancouver, she had been stiffed with the bill for her food and her date’s drinks often enough that knowing she’d be going out with a man like Gavin warmed her heart.

It didn’t stop her from feeling like a robot as she pushed her covers aside and got ready.  

She put on a comfortable pair of jeans, a sparkly sequined top, little black socks, and her boots that she was destroying on the job site.  She did her makeup like she was getting ready to rub shoulders with some really cool people that night.  That meant she did her makeup to make her look like a little cat.  She refreshed her false eyelashes and put a few little sticky jewels under her left eye like diamond tears.  Then she glowed up her blush.

That was something she would miss about being an actress.  She loved having her makeup done right.  Even if she worked on a construction site during the week, it was still the weekend and a devastatingly attractive man was taking her out.

Her heart thrilled with the sound when she heard Gavin ring the bell.  She couldn’t buzz him up, so she put on her coat and went down the long staircase to let him in.  

It was raining like it had been the first night they met and when she opened the door, he held an umbrella over his head and held another one in his hand.  He looked just the way he did that first morning when she didn’t recognize him and reintroduced herself like an idiot.  His hair had that curve like it had just come out of a ponytail and his gold-rimmed glasses framed his light eyes.  

He looked a little awkward.  “Uh… I brought you an umbrella, but that seems kind of stupid when I brought one with me.  Say, why don’t you just keep this spare one and walk to the restaurant with me under this one?”

“Why did you bring me an umbrella?” she asked.  “It’s sweet of you to take care of me, but you don’t need to go that far.  Umbrellas don’t cost a fortune, you know.”

“I know,” he agreed.  “I just didn’t like the idea of you getting wet and it rains all the time here.  If it’s any consolation, it’s just one from my house.  It’s not a new umbrella.  As a matter of fact, you should open it before you take it outside to make sure there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Are you saying I should open it indoors?” she asked playfully.  “Isn’t that bad luck?”

“Just this once,” he said, matching her tone.  “I don’t think it would be bad luck.  I think it would be good luck.”

They had a moment where they stared at each other stupidly.  It was because she thought he was so handsome and he was so thoughtful.  The whole thing was extra nice because she liked the way he looked at her as if he didn’t want one hair on her head to get wet if she didn’t like it.

She took the umbrella.  “Thanks.  I’ll take it upstairs.”  

He waited while she took the umbrella back up the stairs and hung the handle on one of the hooks.  Then she came back downstairs, locked the door, and joined him under the umbrella.  He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him.

“I didn’t tell you,” he began, “but we’re having dinner with Oliver and Ricky.  They were supposed to go on their date tonight, but apparently, they decided to spend the afternoon continuing their talk.  Did you know Oliver got offered an acting job in Vancouver?”

Lindsay nodded.  “Yeah, that was why he decided to get up the nerve to confess to Ricky.  If she said no, he was going to go back to the mainland and take that job.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said.  “Well, it turns out, it’s a pretty good job, so she’s convinced him to take it.  She’s going to close her beauty salon and join him in a month.”

It was Lindsay’s turn for her jaw to hang open.  “Are you serious?”

Gavin smiled, raised his eyebrows, and smacked his lips in the affirmative.  “Yeah.  They’ve decided they are crazy about each other and that they really can have it all.  They can have friendship, love, money, and the life both of them have always dreamed about.  Since they had the whole afternoon together and the better part of the evening, they want to hang out with us since Oliver is going back to the mainland tomorrow.”

“Well, that’s fantastic!  Very generous.  I’m not sure if I’d want to spend my last night on the island that way.”

“I am the boy’s brother,” Gavin pointed out.  

“Well, when you put it that way, I suppose I wouldn’t want to leave the island without spending my last night with you,” she teased.

He suddenly gripped her bare hand up the sleeve of her coat.  “Listen,” he said, looking into her eyes.  “I know I’m your boss and I know you’re shy about starting a relationship, but I’d really like it if we could take our relationship to the next level.  I don’t want to just be your boss.  Boyfriend sounds stupid at our age, but I want something with you that makes me your most important person.  I want to be the person you call when you have a problem.  Not just with the doorknob, but with everything.  Can I be that person to you?”

Lindsay swallowed.  She wanted that too, but she didn’t understand what would happen if they were found out.  “I’d like that, but what would your boss say if he found out you were dating one of your workers?”

“My boss?” Gavin asked incredulously.  

“Yeah.  Would it cause a stink?”

Gavin started laughing.  “Okay.  I see a few things have not been made clear to you.  It’s not in my job description to do renovations.  That’s my  hotel.  My uncle owned it for decades and I ran it under him.  I started doing repairs myself because getting a contractor out here is a major pain in the ass.  It’s ridiculous, but it’s way easier, and cheaper, to hire a few assistant hotel managers than it is to find someone reliable to do repairs promptly.  I am not letting that hotel fall apart under my nose.  With that idea, I started remaking the rooms.  When my uncle got sick, he left me in charge.  When he died, he left it to me in his will.  I do not have a boss breathing down my neck.”

“Oh…” Lindsay said a little lifelessly.  The news should not have brought the wind out of her sails, but she was awfully disappointed with herself.  Yes, he had inherited the hotel, but he had also worked his butt off.  She had been working with him.  She knew how hard he worked.  Why had she put all her work into something that was never going to pan out?  Why couldn’t she have chosen something smarter?  If she had done that, she would have something to show for her work… Instead of nothing.

“And when we’re finished doing the renovations,” he said cheerfully, “you will look awfully cute behind the front desk… If that’s what you want.”

She smiled at him, but she was acting again.  

She didn’t want to act.

She didn’t want to act as she sat down at the table.  She didn’t want to act pleased as she listened to Oliver and Ricky tell them all their plans.  She didn’t want to act excited with a wide spectacular smile spread across her cheeks.  She had lost all her appetite and she didn’t want to eat.  She ordered a salad and it took all her talent to act like it didn’t suck as she forced it down.  She did not want to dance to the crappy country song that was playing on the jukebox, but she got up and danced with Gavin.  

Well, that ended up not being so bad.  She put her head on his shoulder and had a few minutes where she didn’t need to pretend anything.  Dancing with him was nice.  When he turned her in his arms and gave her a little twirl, she looked down like she was afraid she’d lose her footing so she didn’t have to meet his eyes.

He didn’t twirl her again but held her close against his plaid shirt.  “What’s wrong?” he whispered to her.

“Sorry.  I’ve just been thinking about all the bad choices I’ve made.  I’m really embarrassed.”

“Well, from here, it looks like you want to let me down easy, but you’re having trouble finding the words,” he said kindly like he was unbothered by her lack of enthusiasm.

“No.  It isn’t that.  It’s that I have to work tomorrow and I slept, but I’m already tired.  I’m hungry, but I really can’t eat well.  Everything tastes like it shouldn’t be in my mouth.  I screwed up so bad.”

“You need to stop being so hard on yourself,” he suggested.  “Are you feeling jealous that Oliver got a job acting and you didn’t?  Is that what’s really going on?”

She smiled wanly.  “I know I acted all enthusiastic about his job prospects, but that kind of job can be here in a moment and gone in a flash.  TV shows get canceled all the time.  More than being jealous, I hope his dreams don’t go down in flames.  He and Ricky are so happy and I’d be so sad if it didn’t work out just the way they’ve planned.”

“Do you really have to do everything by yourself?” Gavin asked carefully as he maneuvered them away from where Oliver and Ricky were dancing.

Her shoulders slumped.  “No.  I want your help.  You’re my boyfriend… or the man I’m seeing?  Is that a better string of words?”

“It would be easier if I could be your fiance.  It would be easier still if I could be your husband.  Then I’d really feel like I could step in.”

She smiled and brushed off what he said like he wasn’t serious.  “And if you were my husband tonight, what would you do to take all this away from me?”

“Well,” he said pleasantly.  “First, I’d call your sister and find out how much money you owe your mother.  Then I’d send her the money–”

Lindsay made a sound to interrupt him, but he kept talking.

“She’d disagree at first too, but then I’d tell her that we’re family and it was no big deal to take money from family.  After all, it hadn’t been a big deal when you borrowed money from your mother.  So, it wouldn’t be a big deal for me, the son-in-law, to pay it off.”

Lindsay chuckled.  She thought he was playing pretend like so many of her friends and acting buddies did.  They made up stories where everything was suddenly made all right all the time.  She let him go on.

“Then I’d take you back to your apartment and pack up all your clothes.  Then I’d take you home to our  place.  I’d draw a hot bath for you to soak in while I hung up your clothes in the master bedroom closet.  I have a ton of shirts in there that I never wear. If I cleared them out, there would be plenty of room for your nighties and whatever else you put on your body.”  He twirled her again.  “It wouldn’t take long to get it all sorted.  You hardly own anything.  Then I’d march over to the kitchen and whip you up some chocolate mousse with raspberries.  When you got out of the tub, you’d have a little bit of an appetite and you’d let me feed it to you by firelight in the living room.  You’d fall asleep with your head on my knee and I’d kiss your forehead, treating you only like the angel you are.”

“No sex?” she asked, feeling her mood pick up.

“Well, in our story, we’re married.  There would be plenty of time for sex once you were feeling better.  People who are married aren’t in a big hurry for sex.  They know they can have it whenever they want forever.  So it’s no hardship to go one night without.  I’d get you the next night.  Or the next morning.  Well, what do you think of my story?” he asked, obviously eager to hear her response.

“Well, it sounds like perfection,” she said honestly.

“Wonderful.  Sadly, it will have to wait for another day.  Tonight, you’re tired and you’re working tomorrow and nothing is going to change that fact.  I’ll take you back to your place now and you’ll get an early night.”

Lindsay appreciated that as he paid the bill and said goodnight to Oliver and Ricky.  He walked her home.  The cement was slick with puddles and the marina was cloaked in darkness so they couldn’t see the water, only the reflection of the lights on the opposite side of the bay.  His arm was solid and warm next to her and Lindsay really did stop feeling sorry for herself.

At the doorstep, she pulled him onto the landing at the bottom of the stairs out of the rain.  

“I want to kiss you,” she said frankly.  “But there was that thing I said before about how I wanted it to happen on a day where…”

He covered her mouth with a single finger so she didn’t say the other woman’s name.  “I’m not in a big hurry,” he said, bringing his face closer to hers.  “I was before, but I did a lot of thinking while you were at work and then again while you were napping.  For now, if you’re my… girlfriend… partner… person… I wish there was a better word.  If you and I are planning out our love affair, and you’re not planning one with anyone else, and you’re not planning on disappearing off to the mainland, then there is really no need to rush.”  He removed his finger and let out a soothing breath.  “Can I see you after work tomorrow?  I’ll bring a grocery store picnic we can eat at your table.”

“I love that idea,” she said, reaching up and giving him a peck on the cheek anyway.

He gave her a loving smile, turned, and flicked open his umbrella with a practiced motion.  He went back into the rain.  Lindsay watched him at the door until he made it back to his truck.

He was the sweetest!

Lindsay plodded up the stairs and unlocked the second door to get into her apartment.  Inside, she sat on the padded bench of the breakfast nook to take off her boots.  Then she took off her coat.  

The umbrella Gavin had given was hanging on the hook.  She picked it up, lifted it over her head, and pressed the button to open it, only to be showered with paper money.  

“What?” she gasped as it fell faster than confetti in a photoshoot.  

Her reaction was so stunned and Gavin didn’t even get to see it.  

When she had finished with her stunned face, she got on the floor and started gathering up the money.  

It was enough.

It was more than enough to get her out of trouble that month.  Why did he do that?

She counted the money, made sure she hadn’t missed any of it, and then she sent a text to Gavin.

“Guess what I found in the umbrella you gave me?” Lindsay typed.

“Did a bug fall out?” Gavin wrote back.  “Sorry about that.  It was an old umbrella.”

“There weren’t any bugs!  Did you put something in there?”

It was a moment or two before he wrote back, “Not to my knowledge.”

He was going to pretend like he hadn’t given her any money!

Lindsay felt her eyes swell up with tears as she typed, “If it’s not important, is it okay if I keep it?”

“The dust bunnies are all yours,” he replied.

---

Chapter Fifteen

If He Lets You Take Your Time…

The day came.

The day when Gavin didn’t see Marissa, didn’t speak her name, and he didn’t think about her at all.

The day came when he drew Lindsay into his arms and kissed her the way she dreamed he would.  Her reddish hair was between his fingers.  His blondish hair was between hers… And even though Lindsay’s important dream of becoming an actress washed away in the rain, a new dream rose from the clouds like a rainbow.

It was a dream where the work she did didn’t disappear the moment the curtain fell.  It was a dream where she wasn’t wandering around a city late at night trying to make contacts. Instead, she was snug in front of a fire licking chocolate mousse from a spoon that had recently been in the mouth of a surprisingly handsome man.  

It was a dream where she played in the ocean and she didn’t wonder where her next paycheck was coming from.  She ran along the sand and a man with powerful muscles caught her in a wide blanket.  He lifted her off her feet and dumped her into a sand castle that couldn’t have lasted forever.

It was a dream that was so vivid that it was almost real because when Lindsay opened her eyes in the morning, the dream was only a shadow of the life she lived when she was awake.

And as for being an actress… It still came in handy sometimes.

THE END