I am a morning person, by which I mean I frequently stay up into the wee hours of the morning. It’s only the morning hours between 5 and 10 a.m. that I have a problem with.
–Fatally Yours
The next day I didn’t wake up until after ten in the morning. I might not have even woken up then if it hadn’t been for the beeping of my phone.
A quick check told me it was a text from Amelia asking me to call her. I would…later. Right now I wanted to ease into the day and I wanted to savor the lingering satisfaction of the previous night. I was happy…and maybe just a little bit sore.
Anatoly was no longer in bed but I could hear him making noises downstairs. I extended my arms above my head into a long stretch and gently pressed my foot against the purring fur ball that was cuddled up on top of my comforter.
With deliberately languid movements I rolled out of bed and pulled on one of Anatoly’s larger T-shirts to cover my nakedness. I paused for a moment as I tried to make sense of the sounds I was hearing in the house. There was a steady and persistent pounding…actually it was a hammering. My lips curved into a small smile. Anatoly was preparing the house for Dena.
I didn’t immediately see him when I got downstairs although his coffee cup was plainly evident as it sat in the middle of the coffee table…without a coaster.
Actually there were two coffee cups there…and two plates. One covered with nothing but crumbs and the other holding a half-eaten bagel. There was also a large patched-up duffel bag resting on the floor near the couch.
“Hey, Sophie, what’s up?”
I felt my shoulders tense at the sound of Jason’s voice. I grabbed at the hem of Anatoly’s T-shirt and tried futilely to lengthen it as I turned to face him.
He was standing in the doorway of my guest room wearing a white tee with a graphic of some guy with a huge seventies afro wearing a pair of cartoon headphones. He had the courtesy to keep his eyes fixed on the area above my neck.
“I was just getting settled in. Anatoly’s in the bathroom putting in that shower thing.”
There was a crashing sound from the bathroom.
Jason smiled wryly. “Guess I should help him with that.”
“Wait!” I shouted as he took a step toward the bathroom. “Where exactly are you settling into?”
It was such a stupid question but I had to believe that I was misunderstanding the situation. Otherwise I was going to have to murder Anatoly and the last thing I wanted to do was kill the man I loved before I had finished my first cup of coffee.
Jason cocked his head to the side and knitted his eyebrows together as if he was having to work hard to decipher my last question. “I’m settling into the guest room. Isn’t that where you wanted us? You’re not going to make us kick it on the foldout sofa or anything, right?”
“Us? Are you talking about Dena and you?”
“Shit, Sophie, what did you think I was talking about? US Weekly?”
There was another crash and then Anatoly emerged from the bathroom looking disheveled and mildly frustrated. “I should have paid the guys who brought this the additional installation fee.”
“Nah, no need. I’m handy.” Jason gave Anatoly a brotherly slap on the arm. “I’ll have it done in no time.” He pushed past Anatoly to get to the bathroom and then paused, turning slightly but now keeping his eyes directed toward the floor. “Sophie, I don’t want to sound like some kind of puritanical fuckwad but you think maybe you could wear a little more when you’re walking around the house? I’m trying real hard not to look in the wrong places but you know I could slip so unless you and Anatoly are into the whole polyamorous thing…”
Jason let his voice trail off at the end of that sentence. Anatoly laughed. I didn’t.
“I believe you were going to put the portable shower in? The one my boyfriend is apparently incapable of managing?”
Jason glanced at Anatoly and then to me. Unfortunately his eyes did slip down to my legs this time which made him blush and me bristle even more. He quickly slipped into the bathroom without another word.
“Sophie,” Anatoly said quickly, “before you start—”
“We agreed that only Dena would move in here,” I hissed.
“When do you think we agreed to that?” Anatoly asked with what appeared to be genuine curiosity.
“We agreed when you took me to bed! It was implied!”
“Was it?” Anatoly lifted one eyebrow. “So when I was running my fingers up your inner thigh you took that to be some kind of implied message about where Jason was going to be living?”
“You knew I wouldn’t have slept with you if I knew you had invited Jason to stay with us without my consent!”
“That’s questionable,” Anatoly countered.
I raised my hand to smack him and Anatoly grabbed my wrist before I could. Of course I kind of knew he was going to do that just like he kind of knew I was going to physically threaten him in some way that he would have to prevent. He glanced at my wrist, still in his hand, and released a tired sigh before letting my arm drop as if to say, “What’s the point?”
“I’m not trying to piss you off, Sophie—”
“Really?” I snapped. “You did this without even talking to me about it!”
“I did talk to you about it and you yelled about it and then we both stormed off. It wasn’t a great conversation but it did take place. And I did take your feelings about Jason into account. I even considered asking Leah to move in with Jack—”
“Oh, my God, and you say you want to protect me?” My hands twitched at my sides as I struggled to keep them from going for Anatoly’s face again. “I spent weeks living with Leah and my nephew right after her husband was killed. Jack tried to clean my cat with Clorox and I almost lost my mind! It was like some kind of horrible newly developed form of torture! Is that what you want? You want an insane, tortured girlfriend who is mourning the loss of her brutally bleached kitty?”
“No,” Anatoly said testily. “That’s not what I want. What I want is to make you happy and I want Dena to be comfortable and happy. If you’d listen to me you’d know that I didn’t—”
“Got the shower working!” Jason came out of the bathroom, a wrench clasped in his hand.
“That was quick,” I noted.
“Yeah, well, it’s like I said, I’m handy.”
Anatoly shot me a quick look as if to say, “See how useful he is?” I ignored him.
“Jason, Anatoly didn’t tell me you were moving in here.”
Anatoly groaned and shook his head. I could hear little birds twittering outside our window…they were probably having some kind of avian argument about which friends were allowed to visit the nest.
Jason looked momentarily confused. “I just assumed that Dena had talked to you about it.”
“No, Anatoly… Wait, you assumed Dena had talked to me about it?”
“Yeah, when she asked me if I’d be up to crashing at your place for a week or so she said she was going to run it by you first. When Anatoly called I figured it had all been worked out.”
“I called from Dena’s hospital room,” Anatoly said smoothly, “right after Dena told me what she wanted.”
I stared at Anatoly and then turned back to Jason. “Dena invited you to stay here?”
“Nah, not invite, she just ran the idea by me. She’s weirded out by the idea of your helping her to the bathroom and all that.”
“But I’m her best friend!” I pointed out. “That’s what we do for each other!”
“Come on, Sophie. When you guys are together you shoot the shit, shop, drink, whatever. But when I’m with Dena she pretty much tells me what to do and I do it. That’s the dynamic and I’m down with it. So my catering to her every whim…it’s not really all that different from our normal routine.”
But of course that wasn’t really true. Before when Dena ordered him around it was from a position of power. Now it was from a position of need. It was about as far from their normal dynamic as it could possibly be.
But Dena had wanted him to be here. It wasn’t just coming from Anatoly anymore.
“You need to use a coaster if you’re going to be putting your cup on the coffee table.”
Anatoly looked away quickly. I knew he was smirking and the fact that he had the courtesy to hide it from me didn’t make it any less hateful.
“Coaster, got it.” Jason crossed over to the coffee table and picked up his cup. “I know it’s not my place to question the house rules but there’s not a lot you can do to this wood that is going to fuck it up more than it already is.”
“Excuse me?”
“Think about it. Someone killed a tree, chopped it up like a fucking butcher, lathered it up with chemicals to make it shiny and then as a final humiliation stuck a price tag on it so some middle-class wannabe aristocrat could use it to hold oversize books and porcelain coffee cups made in Chinese sweat-shops. Your table used to be alive and now it’s dead. So how’s a ring or two going to hurt it?”
Anatoly’s smirk evaporated. He rarely spent time with Jason and had possibly forgotten just how difficult he was. Anatoly’s newfound concern filled me with a sense of vindication and a newfound tolerance for Jason’s craziness. “Jason,” I said sweetly, “I like my dead table to be ringless. It’s part of my silly bourgeois sensibilities and I’m afraid that as long as you’re here you’re going to have to be a little bourgeois, too. You think you can handle that?”
Jason chuckled. “I’ll give it a go. You want me to see what I can do about setting up the ramp?”
I looked around. As far as I could tell there was no ramp lying around waiting to be installed.
“It’s on the front porch,” Anatoly said. “And yes, that would be great, Jason.”
Jason gave Anatoly a thumbs-up sign and walked out the front door to do his handy-housemate thing.
“Okay, so it was Dena’s idea that he come here, not yours, but you could have told me about it.”
“I had planned on telling you right after I told you about ordering the necessary equipment for Dena but as you’ll recall we became…distracted.”
“Right.” I looked down at the coffee table. “I’m sorry I jumped down your throat.”
“I’m used to it.”
I smiled despite myself.
“I might have made more of an effort to tell you about Jason but I also assumed Dena had talked to you when you went to see her.”
“I didn’t see her yesterday.”
“And why is that?”
I used the tip of my toe and traced a circle in the dust that had collected on my hardwood floor. I wasn’t keeping up with my housekeeping and I certainly wasn’t keeping up with my planned hospital visits. Why hadn’t I seen Dena yesterday? Was it because I had been running around in a panic trying to grant the one major request she had made of me…to find her shooter? Partly. Was it because it was too hard to see her in that bed looking so damn helpless? That was most definitely a factor. But then there was another reason, too. Mary Ann. If she was really in danger then I had to be sure that I was with her when Monty wasn’t. What had happened to Dena…less than a week ago it would have been unimaginable. But if two of my friends were to suffer the same fate…well, that would be flat-out unbearable.
“You were with Mary Ann,” Anatoly said, reading my thoughts.
I nodded. The banging sounds were now coming from my porch and I thought I could hear the sound of Jason whistling a nameless tune.
“I’ve done some research,” Anatoly said. “It doesn’t seem like any of the networks or local channels mentioned Mary Ann or anyone else’s name until the day after the shooting. But again, they did show Mary Ann’s building and give enough information to give her and Dena’s identity away to anyone who knows them well.”
“Yeah,” I said doubtfully, “but if he figured it out for himself don’t you think he would have said so? It’s the kind of thing most people would mention, maybe even brag about.”
“I agree, which is why I’m going to be meeting with my police contact again today and relaying the information.”
“Really?” I reached out and grabbed Anatoly’s arm. “Thank you. God, I hope they take you seriously.”
Anatoly smiled. “People usually do. I also think that it’s too early to rule out the possibility of Amelia.”
“Please, not this again.”
“Sophie—” But he stopped as we were once again interrupted by his phone. That was the problem with today’s technology. There were so many ways you could be interrupted. Thanks to the mobile Web your conversations could even be interrupted by an e-mail.
Anatoly looked around as he located the ring. He had placed his phone on a shelf of the bookcase and quickly went to retrieve it. He sighed when he saw the screen and then picked up. “Yes.”
He was quiet for a moment as he listened to the person on the other line and I couldn’t help but notice that his jaw seemed to be protruding more than it had a moment ago.
“We can discuss this but remember I’m a private detective not a magician.” He paused again and then shook his head and hung up.
“Difficult client?” I asked.
“The most difficult I’ve ever had,” he mused.
“Wow, that’s saying something. What magic trick does he want you to perform?”
Anatoly shook his head and crossed to where his jacket was draped over an armchair. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he said and when he caught the expression on my face he smiled. “I promise I’ll tell you everything but I have to get going right now and placate this lunatic.”
“I guess that’s what they pay you for.”
“Yes.” The pounding outside had become a tad louder and Anatoly glanced toward the door as he pulled on his jacket. “I called the hospital this morning and they said Dena would be released shortly after her physical therapy session.”
“What time does that end?”
“Around three. I’ll try to take a break in my day so I can be here for her arrival but if I can’t I’ll be here by early evening at the latest.” He crossed to me and ran both hands over my hair. “I know there’s more we need to talk about. I’m not avoiding it.”
I smiled and leaned in as he claimed my mouth for a kiss. How could I ever have thought my relationship was in trouble? Everything was perfect…except there was a potential murderer on the loose who seemed to like to shoot bullets in my vicinity and my best friend was coping with a new disability and I had a new roommate who got sanctimonious over the rights of coffee tables but aside from that life was fantastic.