Southern Package

by Poppy Adams

  Lilly glanced at her friend, suddenly fighting the lump in her throat. She croaked, "Thanks Abbey."

  She couldn't tell her about the death threat: one, because it most likely had nothing to do with the fire, and two, because Abbey would move her into hiding and never let her out.

  "Ahem, let's hope you're right." Her phone beeped, she grabbed it from her purse and found Anon had sent her a text. "Ah, wait a minute. Let me reply to this."

  His message read:

  ‘Are you recovered? I put any surviving belongings in storage. I'll send the details of where you can find them. Most of the downstairs was ruined, but the upstairs was mostly smoke damage. I've sent anything that could be cleaned to a specialist I know. You haven't lost everything. Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  She replied:

  ‘Wow, thanks. You did all that for me?’

  Lilly was so relieved, not everything was lost after all.

  And Anon was wonderful for taking the initiative.

  ‘Wasn't sure my stuff could be released from the scene this early. You've gone above and beyond, as always. If you could, please keep your eyes open for a fabulous place to live on a meager wage? Till then, I'm staying at the Dumont on Lexington in a mini apartment. It comes complete with two queen size beds, executive desk, and a full kitchen so I can't complain. LOL.’

  ‘I can cover the cost if you like? Say the word.’

  ‘Absolutely not. But thank you.’

  ‘Okay, but you must not refuse this: I will organize a PA for you, to pick up the slack while you recover and sort out your living arrangements. I'll hire her from the same superb agency I use. She'll make enquiries about a new home, but I'll see what can be done with your house too. If you need anything at all, just ask.’

  ‘I'm speechless. If you're sure? I could do with a little help sorting out a function coming up, too. You're the best, Anon.’

  Lilly wished she knew who this person was and longed to press him for a meeting, to thank him, but she couldn't. It was his right to remain anonymous and she couldn't risk losing his donations, or his support in general.

  “Anything important?" asked Abbey.

  "Anon, checking in. He's taken care of my belongings and offered to pay for a temporary PA to fill in while I'm recovering. How cool is that?"

  "You say ‘he’. Remember they could just as easily be a ‘she,’ or even an ‘it.’ It could be artificially intelligent robot trying to seduce you. But yeah, it is cool of him, she, or it to offer their assistance . . . from afar. You can take it easy for a change, so you had better do that."

  "I don't know; I can’t stop fretting. The function's looming and I'm way behind on arrangements. Course, the PA can sort that out for me now, while I take care of the daily running and everything else." Lilly swooned, "Anon thinks of everything."

  "He can't keep you warm at night, can he?"

  "Oh, I dunno." She thought about the sexy bath she enjoyed before the fire. "That reminds me, I'm going to need to purchase another vibrator."

  Abbey threw a cushion at her and laughed, "I freaking love you, lady."

  "Ha, fancy a coffee?" Lilly began to prepare a pot of coffee for them both while Abbey unpacked and hung Lilly's new wardrobe.

  "Love one. No need to worry about how the fire started, anyway," Abbey said. "You can't change what happened by worrying. Let's worry about what you should wear for this second date instead." She held up a red knee length silk dress, "I vote for this. It's beautiful and will really suit your coloring."

  Lilly sighed, remembering her planned date and enjoyed the itch of excitement in her tummy. "Um, not sure."

  What should a woman wear on a date with the man who saved her life?

  "He won't show up in tights and a cape, so quit with the hero-worship. You might fall in love with the hero element and forget he's just a man. Bad things happen when women idolize men."

  "Maybe, but he did save my life." Lilly smiled to herself, remembering Fredrick carrying her into the night air, the heat of the flames behind her. "I can't forget something like that."

  "The work you do for your charity saves lives too you know. Think of all the reformed gamblers out there, living lives with support, enjoying their families, fathers and mothers who can be a part of their children’s lives… and all because of you. Just because you don't run into burning buildings, doesn't make you any less of a hero. Don't worship men, Lilly. Love them, fuck them, befriend them, but never worship."

  Lilly loved Abbey; she had a cute way of building her up and massaging her ego.

  Still, to her, Fredrick and his crew were her heroes.

  "Yeah, yeah. Hey, I'm still dating this guy, so let’s get to my shopping bags and let's see what works."

  Abbey shook her head and smiled opening yet another bag. "Personally, I doubt it will make much difference what you wear."

  "Why?"

  "He's seen you without makeup, in a hospital gown, stinking of smoke and still called and texted and visited you. Your hook is well and truly in. Here, I forgot about this. I bought this foundation to cover your bruise."

  "Oh, thanks." Lilly grinned to herself. His heroism and subsequent compassion, especially after she had badly misjudged him, was both commendable and sexy as hell. Their second date might start out cleaner than the first, but might just end up even dirtier. "Forget the coffee, let's open that bottle of wine."

  "Now you're talking." Abbey dumped the shopping bag and moved swiftly to the wine rack. "Cork screw?"

  Chapter 12

  Sitting in a sushi restaurant with her date, who arrived early by the way, Lilly wanted to start as she meant to go on.

  Honesty was always the best policy.

  "You know the families where everyone's a little crazy, but they're your family so you love them anyway?"

  "Yeah," said Fredrick, looking all too edible in a crisp white shirt. "Yours like that?"

  "No, not really." Lilly scoffed, "Mine is more like marble—cold but hardwearing and incredibly stylish. Well, apart from my dad, who I loved in spite of him being a gambling addict."

  "Ouch, bet he presented a few problems for your family. Addiction doesn't bring the best out in people."

  "Yeah. Dad told an unending succession of lies and always let me down, but underneath it all, he had a soul. Something lacking in the rest of my family."

  "I hear you, soul is more than my dad ever had."

  Claire thought of something, "When I was a kid, Dad used to read me Shakespeare's stories and I loved Romeo and Juliet."

  "You romantic, you," said Fredrick, head tilting slightly.

  "It's easy to be when you're a kid. The whole world seems endless, like possibilities sit on every snowflake or something." Snorting, she added, "Get let down a few times and well . . . "

  "Ah, a correction if I may: Former romantic, now skeptic?"

  The blush burned her cheeks and she wanted to change the subject.

  This was like talking to Abbey.

  She always told her to be less cynical about love, life and relationships.

  If only Lilly could trust a man the way she trusted Abbey.

  Or Anon.

  "My best friend would say skeptic sounds about right." She searched his eyes and squirmed a little beneath the intensity of his gaze. "Anyway, where was I?"

  He learned closer, "You were saying how you loved Romeo and Juliet before life gave you lemons."

  "Yes, correct. Those damned lemons," she sniggered. "Thanks for the recap."

  He's listening to me. Good start.

  "Once, when he couldn't afford a birthday gift for me and never came to my party—most likely because he was spending his pay check in a casino—he came by a few days later with a card he'd made himself out of a piece of A4 paper. He wrote inside: 'Great love, you believe, carries the seeds of great sorrow.' I asked why he put such a sad thing in my birthday card.”

  “And what was his reply?”

  “He told me, 'Valuable advice w
as the only gift he could give me at the time, but it would serve me far longer than another Barbie doll.' I never understood what the quote meant at the time. Now, I get it."

  Fredrick cleared his throat. "Pretty deep for a kid. Did he mean to prepare you saying love leads to sorrow? Was that his warning, do you think?"

  "I think he was warning me that loving him, and possibly others like him, would ultimately lead to sorrow. In his case, he was certainly right. Layers of hurt followed forgiveness, followed hurt."

  "Family huh, who needs one?" Fredrick responded.

  "Me." She'd somehow steered their conversation to a dark place and as this was their first real date and second attempt at getting it right, she needed to take it back into the light. "Don't get me wrong, he wasn't all bad. Far from it. I learned more from him than anyone."

  "Oh?"

  "Oh yeah. From loving him, I learned not everything is black and white. The murky grey area is where most of us imperfect souls reside, and there's nothing wrong with grey. Owning your imperfections is the key, and to try to be the best person you can be. Not as easy as it sounds, unfortunately."

  Fredrick took her hand in his, "You're a strong woman, Lilly. I'm sure you manage. I've admired that about you from the beginning."

  Admired me, even though I acted like a judgmental cow?

  He's a better person than me.

  "Thanks, although I have my moments, and my friend would argue I'm a coward in some things. But I grew up to learn life can be testing. Saying that, on the whole, it's pretty good to me these days."

  "These days? Meaning it hasn't always been, or because nearly dying in a fire made you smell the roses? I hear that a lot."

  "Well," dammit, she didn't want to go dark again. Was he a fire fighter or psychiatrist? "I just mean growing up was often hard and adulthood is much easier in comparison. I'm in control now and have no one to worry about but myself. I'm also in control of who I let into my world. Who I'm exposed to, that sort of thing."

  He frowned before saying, "Thanks for exposing yourself to me then. I'm privileged."

  Lilly winced, would he see through her now?

  She wasn't strong when it came to relationships, but she hated to appear weak.

  Especially when he admired strength.

  "No problem. Thanks for giving me another chance to prove I'm not a complete bitch . . . I hope."

  He winked, "Second chances are a good thing all round, I'd say." Lilly loved his understanding smile and how he stroked the back of her hand. "So," he leaned back in his seat and grabbed his drink for a gulp of Sake. "What about your mother, and are there any siblings?"

  "Ah," Lilly loathed talking about a family who turned their back on her father. But she started the conversation. "Are you sure you want to hear all this?"

  "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," said Fredrick.

  "Okay." Deep breath, it will be worth it if he shares too. "I'll hold you to that. Okay, my mother was the cold element to my family, and most of her side of the family is so shut off from emotion you'd need an icepick to get through. They refused to see that my father was actually ill and not just some evil selfish man. So anyway, I gave up trying with them after my father died, and as soon as I could leave home, I did so, at seventeen. Nope, no siblings. Not exposing more children to her and her family was perhaps the kindest thing my mother every did."

  "Oops," Fredrick leaned his jaw in his hand, elbow on the table. Her mother would not approve, but to Lilly, it showed his keen interest and made her feel special. "So you had his lies on the one hand and her icy nature on the other. Must have been lonely growing up?"

  "Yeah, but Abbey and I grew up together. She's always been a kind of sister to me. Her family are the complete opposite of mine. They're so warm and loving, going to one of their family gatherings is like stepping outside into a sunny day, any day of the year."

  "Friendship is so important, but I think when your family is like ours, it's crucial."

  "Exactly, and now it has to be your turn."

  Fredrick sat up straight and looked at his shoes, "Let's just say my father was a capitalist through and through and his family were there to offer something to his persona, to his image, but for little else. My father and I couldn't be more different."

  "Oops," Lilly said, sipping at her Sake, enjoying the warm burn in her chest as it made its way down. "Sorry." She wanted to offer Fredrick her warmth, "What about your mother? Couldn't she offer an alternative experience?"

  "She may have done at some point, but she died when I was young. I can't remember her now."

  She died?

  "How awful, Fredrick. How did she die, if you don't mind me asking?"

  "In a house fire.” He took a long pause. “Hence the job."

  He smiled weakly, and she could tell it was more for her than anything.

  Lilly set her glass on the table and moved her chair closer to his.

  Fredrick looked at how close their knees were as she shuffled towards him, "I was three. She left me upstairs sleeping in my bed while she went for her usual evening soak. She fell asleep in the tub. Nothing too wrong with that picture you might think, until you learn she dropped her lit cigarette on the magazine she'd been reading and left on the floor."

  Lilly gasped at the horrifying image conjured in her mind, "Terrifying to think you can die from fire while enjoying a snooze in the bath? You'd think you'd be safe in water?"

  "Yeah, I get that. I thought the same once. But most people don't die from the flames. They die from the noxious smoke they inhale. You were close to that yourself. There were lots of perfumes and medicines in her bathroom, like most bathrooms, which didn't help. That's probably what did it."

  "Poor you."

  He shrugged, "Having no mother might have been better than having your mother, by the sounds of her."

  "Maybe." She rested her hand on his. "And your father? Is he still around?"

  "No, he died around five years ago." He seemed upset. "Heart attack." A dark cloud lowered over his face and the shine dulled in his eyes. "As though his gluttony squeezed his organs to death."

  She lowered her gaze, feeling she had intruded upon his grief.

  Fredrick's history matched her own—lonely and tragic, and she wanted to hold him in her arms and squeeze all the hurt right out of him.

  When her gaze met his again, he stroked the hair from her face and smoothed it over her ear, "We can both paint a dark picture of our childhoods. Seems we have a lot in common, Lilly."

  "Seems we do."

  Chapter 13

  Fredrick wanted her more than he ever wanted anyone, and her eyes told him how much she wanted the same thing. "Shit helps the roses grow. Isn't that what they say?"

  Lilly laughed, "Err, something like that."

  "You certainly bloomed."

  And she had.

  She was the epitome of beauty, inside and out.

  "Be careful," Lilly blushed. "That was almost a compliment."

  "No, it was most definitely one. Can you take them?"

  They shared a smile and he wanted to hold her, to take her back to his place and ravish the sadness out of her.

  "I'll try," she bit her lip and peered up at him through thick eyelashes.

  As their date continued, they ate expensive sushi half-heartedly, pushing their fishy bites around their plates more than anything, while their focus remained on one another.

  Fredrick became hyper aware of her every movement: the way her mouth moved and chewed asparagus, and how her lips embraced the glass as she sipped her Sake.

  He had to possess her, but wouldn't she hate him when she learned about his father?

  The billionaire casino owner she petitioned against wouldn't make many good women wet, but her even less.

  What happens when she finds out about how he inherited the casinos she wished would close down already?

  Even if he told her he donated most of the profits to charities, when she discovered he had yet to sell
those casinos, her blood would boil.

  What was his father thinking, making him wait ten years till he could sell them?

  Did he enjoy seeing his son suffer, even from the grave?

  Damn him.

  "So," he cleared his throat and tried to change his stream of thought. "You started the anti-gambling foundation in honor of your father. Commendable."

  "Not commendable—sensible. To me, he taught me how fragile we human's are. How manipulated by needs, quite out of our control, we can be. He also showed me the other side of addiction. People focus of the bad side—the lying, the stealing, the selfish choices—but they fail to acknowledge how these people suffer. They don't want to lie to people they love, but they can't always help themselves."

  "You're a forgiving soul, huh? I imagine he let you down every day and yet you are able to see beyond his behavior. Who taught you that skill?"

  Perhaps if I forgave mine, I'd feel less rage when I think of the burden my father saddled me with.

  "Thing is, I can't forgive. You're a stronger person than me, that's for sure."

  "I doubt it. He hurt me, like I said. I mean the lies he told," Lilly shook her head, and fake laughed, but he observed the sadness behind her eyes, evoked by his words. He could have kicked himself. "Wow, they were whoppers, but he was sick, not cruel. He hated himself most of the time—who can live like that? Perhaps your father's addiction was money?"

  "I guess you got to love an addict to see things your way, especially as a child. Not sure I'd be able to. Mine wasn't an addict though. He was just a selfish bastard. I can't forgive mine for . . . "

  Stop!

  Fredrick nearly told her; she was so easy to talk to.

  "For what?"

  "For being a lousy, selfish, good for nothing but making money . . . "

  She raised her hand, "Shall we call him a bad father and be done with it?"

  Lilly must have seen how upset he was getting.

  Talking about his father always set him off, especially when his connection to him might threaten his relationship with her.