Paper Love

by Jae

  The ER was busy, probably with cuts, intoxications, and other little injuries from the carnival parade.

  Susanne glanced around for something to distract her, barely resisting the urge to tap her foot. Her gaze repeatedly went to Anja to see how she was holding up. A single piece of pink confetti still clung to Anja’s hair, and Susanne reached out to remove it. Then she felt Ulrike’s gaze on her and quickly let her hand drop back to her lap.

  It seemed to take forever until a nurse stepped out and called, “Is somebody here for Norbert Wolff?”

  “Yes!” Susanne and Anja jumped up, while Ulrike got up more slowly.

  The nurse nodded. “The patient will be right out.”

  “How is he?” Anja asked.

  When the nurse hesitated, Susanne added, “I’m his niece.”

  “We X-rayed his pelvic region, and it seems he was really lucky. He’s got a coccyx contusion—a bruised tailbone—but nothing is broken or dislocated.”

  Anja exhaled sharply and leaned against Susanne’s shoulder. “Thank God!”

  “He’s still in quite a bit of pain, so we’ll be giving him a prescription for painkillers,” the nurse said. “He’ll have trouble sitting and maybe even walking for a week or two.”

  “Anything else we can do?” Ulrike asked.

  “Get him a donut cushion and apply ice for the first few days.” The nurse shrugged. “Other than that, there’s not much we can do.”

  “What about work?” Susanne asked. “We’re in the middle of restructuring his store.”

  “Well, he doesn’t need to be on bed rest, but if his work requires a lot of sitting or bending and lifting, he should sit it out.”

  Susanne grimaced at the poor choice of words and traded glances with Anja, who was finally getting some color back in her cheeks.

  The nurse said goodbye, and it wasn’t long before Uncle Norbert came out of the treatment area. He walked gingerly, as if every step hurt, but he grinned when he saw them. “The X-ray tech said I have a great-looking ass!”

  “She…or he did not say that!” Ulrike slapped his arm, but her fondness for him was obvious from the way she looked at him.

  Susanne smiled, glad that her uncle had someone in his life and that he was already feeling well enough to make jokes.

  “Okay, maybe he said the X-rays look good, but it was an X-ray of my ass, so…”

  Anja gave him a careful hug.

  Susanne instantly missed her warmth against her side. Stop being stupid. You’ve never been the touchy-feely type. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  Anja stepped back. “God, Nobby, never scare us like this again!”

  “Wasn’t my intention. Ulrike was the one who insisted on calling you.” He gave his friend a little glare before addressing Anja and Susanne again. “Sorry you didn’t get to see the rest of the carnival parade.”

  “We had already left the parade,” Anja said.

  Oh shit. Did she have to tell him that?

  He looked back and forth between them. “Please don’t tell me you went to the café to work!”

  “No, we…” Anja studied the floor as if she had found something very fascinating down there. Her face had taken on the color of the paper flamingo she’d made for the store.

  Under different circumstances, Susanne would have found it cute.

  “I promise we didn’t work for even a minute,” Susanne said. For once, work had been the last thing on her mind.

  Uncle Norbert continued to look at them.

  His scrutiny made Susanne nervous. Didn’t he believe her, or could he sense that something had happened between them?

  “I think we should fill that prescription and get you home so you can ice that great-looking ass of yours.” Ulrike gently took his elbow and led him to the exit.

  “I could drive him home,” Susanne offered.

  Ulrike shook her head. “That’s not necessary. Nobby and I are neighbors, so I’m going there anyway.”

  “But who’ll make him dinner?”

  “Hey, I’m not an invalid,” Uncle Norbert protested. “I hurt my tailbone, not my hands. I can take care of dinner myself.”

  Ulrike patted his arm. “You eat dinner over at my place almost every night anyway.” She looked at Susanne. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure he takes it easy at home.”

  “At home?” Uncle Norbert echoed. “I’m not staying at home. The doctor said I could work.”

  “He or she probably said you could work as long as you’re not sitting for any length of time or bending down and lifting stuff,” Anja said. “And that’s ninety percent of what you do at Paper Love. You won’t be able to restock the shelves or work in the office, and even if you stand behind the counter, you’ll be uncomfortable and grouchy. That’s hardly the way to make our customers happy. So why not finally take some time off, like you promised me you would back in December?”

  Oh wow. Susanne struggled to hide her grin. Anja was a force to be reckoned with when she was protecting the people she cared about.

  Uncle Nobby looked completely steamrollered. “But—”

  “Don’t worry.” Anja rubbed his arm. “We’ve got it covered. Right, Susanne?”

  “Right.” Then Susanne’s amusement faded as they left the ER and she remembered that she’d be in the car with Anja in a minute and that she didn’t have a clue what to say to her.

  Now that the emergency was over, awkwardness settled between them. Anja missed Susanne’s arm around her. Not even the soothing notes of Jenna Blake’s latest song drifting through the car’s speakers could drown out the silence between them—quite the opposite. The romantic ballad made her all the more aware that there would be no romance for her and Susanne.

  “I’m so glad he’s not seriously hurt,” Anja said when she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Me too.” Susanne took a right onto Lehener Strasse, then stopped at a red light at the next intersection. She peeked over at Anja. “But I guess it changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “Between us?” Anja said before she could stop herself.

  “No!” The light turned green, and Susanne accelerated across the intersection a little too fast. “No. I mean…” She eased up on the gas pedal. “The fact that he’ll be out for a week or two and Felix isn’t working either. I’ll have to step up my stationery game and help out more at Paper Love.”

  Great. Anja squeezed her eyes shut for a second. That meant they’d spend even more time together than before, just when they could use a little distance.

  “What?” Susanne sent another quick glance over at her. “You don’t think I can do it?”

  “No, no, that’s not…” Anja bit her lip. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” The question was, how well would she be doing, having to work with Susanne more closely than ever, while all she could think about was that kiss and what Susanne had said afterward?

  Chapter 14

  “Hey, slow down!” Miri called as Anja marched along the lake’s shore. “This is supposed to be a relaxing walk, not a race.”

  Anja slowed so Miri and Gino could catch up. “Sorry. I guess with everything that happened today, I’ve got a lot of nervous energy to burn.”

  “But you said Nobby will be fine, right?”

  “That’s what they said at the ER. We just need to keep him from returning to work too soon.”

  “Then what else has got you so…twitchy?” Miri asked.

  Anja opened her mouth to tell her she wasn’t twitchy, but what slipped out instead was, “I kissed her.” She gripped Miri’s arm the way she had gripped Susanne’s earlier that day. “I kissed Susanne.”

  She expected Miri to stumble to a halt and stare at her, but her friend waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, that’s nothing. I slept with her sister.”

  Now Anja was the one stumbling to a halt and staring. “You…what?”

  Miri dragged her over to a bench beneath a streetlamp and pulled her down next to her. The dog flo
pped down at their feet. “I slept with Franzi.” A big grin spread over her face, and her eyes shone. “Well, there wasn’t actually much sleeping going on last weekend.”

  “Oh wow,” was all Anja could think of to say.

  Miri’s grin became even broader, if that was possible. “You can say that again,” she said in a dreamy, faraway voice. “God, it was fantastic. Best sex I ever had.”

  Anja covered her ears with both hands. “No details, please. She’s Susanne’s sister.”

  Miri laughed. “Okay, okay. I’ll just daydream about the mind-blowing details in silence.”

  “So now what?”

  “More great sex.” Miri’s eyes twinkled. “Franzi will try to come down here next weekend.”

  “She knows that’s all it is, right? Great sex?” Anja knew Miri was usually very up-front about the fact that she wasn’t into commitment, but since they were talking about Susanne’s sister, she wanted to make sure. The situation was complicated enough as it was.

  “Actually…” Miri’s grin transformed into a soft smile. “This time that’s not all it is. I thought it was, but she keeps surprising me. I keep surprising me when I’m with her.”

  “Oh wow.” Anja hadn’t expected that. She had rarely seen her friend like this. Miri jumped into relationships much faster than she did, but she didn’t often become serious about it so quickly.

  “We don’t know each other very well yet, except in the Biblical sense, of course,” Miri added with a wink, “but I could easily fall in love with her. Being with her is just so easy. So right.”

  Anja nodded to herself. That’s what being with Susanne felt like too, and the flutter in her belly told her that she, too, could easily fall in love. If you aren’t already, a voice in her head helpfully pointed out. She silenced it immediately.

  “God, listen to me.” Miri laughed and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Gooey like a marshmallow.”

  “What about Franzi? Is she open to more than a weekend fling?”

  “She feels the same.” Miri beamed. “We decided to try to make this work.”

  “How? She lives eight hundred kilometers away.”

  Miri shrugged. “That’s what planes and trains are for.” At the skeptical look Anja gave her, she added, “Look, we’re not sending out wedding invitations quite yet. Maybe it’ll work out; maybe it won’t. But I really enjoy her company, in and out of bed, and I want to see where this can go, so why not give it a try?”

  It sounded so easy. Could it be as simple for her and Susanne?

  Miri slid closer and nudged her. “Now let’s stop talking about me and start telling me about you and Susanne! You really kissed her?”

  “Well, we never established who kissed whom first, but…” She exhaled. “Yeah.”

  Miri did a little dance on the bench, wiggling her shoulders. “Woo-hoo! How was it? Is she as good a kisser as her sister?”

  Anja glared at her but then gave in. “Let’s just say that if Franzi was a better kisser than her sister, you would still be in Berlin.”

  “Oh, it was a close call, believe me. So you and Susanne decided to give it a go too? That’s so cool!” Miri clapped her hands, making Gino jump up and bark once. She shushed him. “We can go out on a double date next Saturday before I drag Franzi back to bed.”

  Anja studied her shoelaces. “Um, no. We decided to just be friends. The store needs my full attention, especially now that Nobby is out sick for a week or two.”

  “So you just…shut off your feelings?” Miri made a cutting-off motion with her hand. “How’s that working out for you?”

  A sigh escaped Anja. “Not very well. It’ll probably take some time to get over it, but it’s for the best.” Maybe if she told herself that often enough, she’d start to believe it.

  “Oh, come on, you don’t believe this pile of bullshit, do you?”

  “We’ve got to work together for the store to survive, Miri. If we mess this up…”

  “For six more weeks! You’ll be working together for just six more weeks. It’s not like you would be stuck with her until you retire if it doesn’t work out.”

  Anja folded her hands behind her neck and massaged her stiff muscles while swaying back and forth twice. “That’s just it. Six weeks. Then she’ll be gone.”

  “To Berlin, not on a mission to colonize Mars!” Miri pulled one of Anja’s arms down so she could study her face. “Come on, Anja. She’s hot, she’s intelligent, and she spent an entire afternoon building paper boats with you, indulging your stationery geekiness. Why not give it a try? If I can do it, so can you! What have you got to lose?”

  Anja swished her feet through the grass beneath the bench. “My heart.”

  Miri softened her grasp on Anja’s arm. “So that’s what this is really about. You’re scared.”

  Was that it? Anja slumped against the back of the bench. “Of course I am. I’m not like you, Miri. I don’t take risks. I like to keep my feet firmly on the ground instead of jumping into the unknown.”

  “I know. I’m not asking you to go skydiving or to give up your life here and move to Berlin with her. But, sweetie, you can’t lock your heart away and wait for a guarantee that you won’t get hurt.” Miri slid her hand down Anja’s arm and squeezed her fingers. “There are no guarantees. When you climbed that observation tower, you didn’t have any guarantee that you wouldn’t have a panic attack halfway up, and yet you did it anyway.”

  Yes, she had braved the observation tower. With Susanne’s help. Hope fluttered in her belly. Maybe if she and Susanne were in it together, she could do this too. “But she hasn’t given me any indication that she wants something beyond those six weeks with me. She wants to go back to Berlin, find a new job, get back to her old life. After we kissed, she immediately apologized and said that getting involved makes no sense.”

  “Sense? Since when do feelings have to make sense?” Miri shook her head. “Maybe she said that because she’s just as scared.”

  Anja wanted to object. Susanne was the epitome of confidence, never afraid to take risks and make the hard decisions. But then she thought about it. Maybe that was just business Susanne. Maybe private Susanne was different. She remembered the discouraged slump of Susanne’s shoulders when she had told her she could barely make a relationship work even if she lived in the same city as her girlfriend.

  She jumped up from the bench, nearly stumbling over Gino in her haste.

  Miri stared up at her. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. I think you said something very right. Do you mind if we cut this walk short?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “You’re the best.” Anja bent and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for kicking my butt.”

  Miri clapped her shoulder. “You’re my best friend. Ass-kicking is included in the package. Now go get your woman, tiger!”

  Anja rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling. She tousled Gino’s shaggy fur, waved at Miri, and fell into a jog as she headed for the nearby streetcar stop.

  Susanne trudged through her apartment, which felt even emptier than before. She had tried to settle down with her laptop and work on a blog template for Paper Love yet couldn’t focus on it. She called her uncle to see if he needed anything, but Ulrike assured her that she was taking good care of him.

  Grunting, she stalked to the kitchen and filled the electronic water kettle to make some tea. Maybe that would help with her restlessness.

  Once the kettle clicked off, she grabbed it and dumped some water into a mug, promptly spilling half of it all over the counter.

  “Dammit.” Disgusted with herself, she grabbed a dish towel and mopped up the water. God, she felt as if she had a hangover—just without the fun of getting drunk first.

  Well, she had felt drunk on Anja’s kiss.

  Oh great. There we go again. Her brain started the mental slideshow of that kiss in the hallway. Anja had barely touched her, yet she could still feel her everywhere. How was that possible?

  Ta
p-tap-tap. “Meeeooow?”

  This time Muesli’s let-me-in concert was a welcome distraction. She left her attempts at making tea behind and went to the living room.

  The sight of Muesli staring at her from the other side of the glass was starting to become familiar. The red streak on top of his head was new, though.

  Oh, right. She had forgotten all about getting the lipstick off his fur as soon as Anja’s lips had touched hers. And afterward, they had rushed off to the ER.

  Sighing, she opened the French door so she could clean him up.

  He shot into the apartment as if trying to not give her time to change her mind and close the door in his face. Once inside, he trotted to the kitchen at a more leisurely pace, stood in front of the fridge, and meowed up at it.

  Susanne followed. “I don’t think you’re supposed to have human food.” Not that there was much in her fridge. She opened it and found a package of sliced turkey breast behind two cups of yogurt. “This should be safe, right?”

  “Meow.”

  “Yeah, of course you’d say that.” She sliced up a bit of turkey breast, put it on a plate, and slid it in front of him. As an afterthought, she added a bowl of water. “Don’t get used to it. It’s just this once, as an apology for the lipstick thing.”

  As she watched him gobble up the meat, the doorbell rang.

  Maybe her neighbor, Muesli’s owner, was looking for her cat.

  She went to the door and peered through the peephole, but the hallway beyond was empty, so she pressed the button for the intercom. “Yes?”

  Only silence answered.

  Just as Susanne was about to storm back into the kitchen, thinking it was some stupid practical joke, a female someone cleared her throat.

  “It’s…it’s me. Anja.”

  She didn’t need to add that. Susanne would recognize her voice anytime, anywhere. Adrenaline spiked through her. “What’s wrong? I just talked to Uncle Nobert. He’s not doing worse, is he?”

  “I talked to him too. He’s fine. Can I come in? I think we need to talk.”