by Jenn Hughes
LEDs and computerization had replaced many of the hand-painted signs hanging above shop doors. The hill leading up to Origin’s entry drive, a climb he once enjoyed because it gave him the impetus to stop and inspect some of the original cast-iron streetlamps and shingle siding, had been bought up and then partially leveled to accommodate a new commercial high-rise. So as his muscles burned without a break, Sam wished for things to stay the same. If only for a little while longer.
His second wind arrived, and Sam focused on problems within his ability to solve. He used the time to try to come up with a good plan for smoothing things over with Lillian. It seemed cheap to buy her nothing but a movie ticket and a bucket of popcorn. But he’d look desperate if he ordered all the flowers in town and had them sent to her office. He was desperate, but he didn’t want to look it.
Finally, he decided a year’s subscription to the Firespawn Premium Edition would work. Lillian might want to blow off some steam by destroying a few hell trolls in multiplayer mode. What woman wouldn’t love that?
Chapter 19
Reindead Wrong
In line to see Reindead at The Electric, something bugged Sam. Something weird in his chest. His heartbeat felt wrong. Too fast and not in rhythm. And it had nothing to do with the anticipation of watching a movie about half-reindeer, half-human heroes bestowed with the powers of Norse gods.
Reindead’s auteur of a director took the premise so literally he refused to believe reindeer would speak in any language other than that of reindeer, and so no one should understand what they said. Sam felt some similarities there. Nothing he said made any sense, either, which explained his bad case of nerves. That night, Sam had to make complete sense when he opened his mouth because he had to say something both instinctually wrong and rationally right.
He had to say goodbye to Lillian Walker forever—but in a way so that she understood he never wanted to say goodbye.
Sam had thought long and hard on his plan. When he saw Lillian at The Electric, he’d remain cool, calm, and collected. Nothing too showy. No going too far out of his way. He’d give her his brief but well-rehearsed apology, and nothing more. No flirting or small talk or begging and pleading . . .
Unless she smiled that smile of hers.
Or looked like she wanted to smile.
Or flirted a little.
He’d be rude to ignore all that.
But Lillian didn’t show. No sign of her in line. No calls or texts. Nothing.
Inside The Electric, Sam searched the lobby, eying every corner and weaving around the other moviegoers like a boxer dodging punches. No Lillian.
He bought his ticket. Wasted some time drinking a neat bourbon. But it didn’t take off the edge in the slightest. So he bought another one and sulked in the lobby for a while. When showtime rolled around, he headed for Reindead’s auditorium with as much hope left as bourbon.
The only other people in the auditorium were an older couple seated on the left side, and some teenage boys slumped down in the front with their eyes glued to their cell phones—Origin Sixes. A solid model, but the Sevens blew them out of the water with electroluminescent high-definition screens.
Sam had a Seven. So did Lillian . . .
He plunked down into his seat. Alone. Soon the lights dimmed, and the movie started. Thirty minutes passed. He should have paid attention to the film, but he kept looking down the aisle. At the exit doors. Around the theater, in case she’d slipped in without him seeing. But no Lillian. No matter when or where he looked.
Reindead played on. Any other night and Sam would have been enthralled by buff CGI reindeer swinging swords and battle axes as they gruesomely decimated an army of Jotnar out to destroy Christmas. But that night he didn’t care. Didn’t pay attention. Except when noticing how Blitzen had long blond hair and wielded Mjolnir.
Lillian would have laughed. He would have laughed, too, if she’d been there.
Sam swirled his remaining bit of bourbon. After downing the last of it, he carefully set the glass on the arm of the chair, and then lazily traced his finger around the rim. Movie nights at The Electric were officially ruined. He couldn’t enjoy it without . . .
“Ah, screw this,” he muttered.
Less than a minute later, Sam exited The Electric. Snow fell silently, landing on his shoulders and dusting his head as he walked in the same direction Lillian had on the night he’d called her hot cocoa. He pulled out his phone from his coat pocket.
“Cedric?”
“Yes, Sam?”
“I need Lillian Walker’s home address.”
“I’m sorry, Sam, but I do not have access to that information. Would you prefer the address to the nearest bar or restaurant?”
Sam groaned and came to a stop at the corner. “You’re monitoring my biometrics, so you know I’ve had two drinks already—do you want me to become an alcoholic? I have her cell phone number. That gives you access to the billing address for the account. Give me the address.”
“Sam, backtracking on a personal call would be considered an illegal violation of Ms. Walker’s privacy. She would not appreciate the intrusion.”
Sam smacked himself on the forehead, and let his hand drag down his face. Cedric’s morality and privacy settings had been lauded as one of the benefits of the tech, controlling an otherwise uncontrollable program capable of relentlessly storing data from every aspect of human life. They’d built him on sturdy, hack-proof programming. Any type of illegal prying activated a security sequence locking the user out of Cedric’s system until it could be investigated and then reactivated by an administrator. Overt manipulation fell off the table.
Damn it, why do I have to be so smart?
“I can get the address myself, Cedric. You would only speed up the process, and you love efficiency, don’t you?”
“I do love efficiency, Sam. But I am certain Ms. Walker would appreciate it if you found her location through less intrusive methods.”
“Since when do you know so much about women?”
“I have access to every women’s magazine and romance novel published in the last three decades. I have compiled data utilizing the following search parameters: women, romance, conflict, and lost contact. This search has helped me to determine the overall consensus of the female population is that, following any conflict, women prefer space until sufficient time has passed. The average time frame is five minutes to six years. It is then suggested a significant display of affection and commitment is required. This typically involves flowers, standing outside of places of residence playing emotional music—”
“Okay, Cedric. I get it. Don’t take the easy way out,” Sam interrupted. “But the easy way is generally my thing. I’m going to have to find her without a computer and the Internet . . . Shit, I’m screwed.”
Be Sherlock Holmes. Or someone else who’s British and knows how to solve complicated things with their brain.
Sam scratched his head and stared blankly across the street. He focused on Talbot’s Toy Store. Although after hours, a few display lights in the front windows beamed down on a variety of toys available inside. Sam squinted at some large white letters on a box down at the corner of the window. He finally recognized the title of a classic board game—Hint.
“Doctor Dunston, in the lab, with the beaker . . . Cedric, how many apartment buildings are within a five-block radius of The Electric?”
“Twelve, Sam.”
A decent start. Rik had mentioned Lillian had moved to Port Bristol less than a year ago, giving Sam a search window. The steep price jump from one- to two-bedroom apartments in downtown meant Lillian probably wouldn’t have wanted to pay the difference for another room.
“Okay. In those twelve buildings, how many had one-bedroom apartments up for rent from December of last year through June of this year?”
“Five, Sam.”
A low turnover rate had created a bullish real estate market in the city. Nice one-bedroom apartments near downtown ran in the region of two to three grand a month. Sam decided to go with a broader price range considering Lillian might have found a fantastic deal or, on the flip side, splurged.
“Of the five, how many fell into the range of $1,500 to $3,500 per month in rent?”
“Three, Sam.”
“Give me those addresses. If you’re going to be stubborn, I’ll just spend the rest of my night knocking on doors until I find her.”
“Good idea, Sam.”
Definitely a good idea. But Sam had to hand it to Hint for the inspiration. Cedric went silent, and three apartment buildings fitting Sam’s search parameters appeared on the map app, along with directions to each. Sam decided to go to the nearest and work his way out from there.
He dropped his phone back into his jacket pocket and headed toward Wallace Avenue. At only a quarter to eleven, he figured if he hurried he could find Lillian before midnight. That left an hour and fifteen minutes to figure out how in the hell he would apologize for showing up uninvited to her apartment . . . to apologize.
“Plenty of time.” He picked up his pace and jogged down the sidewalk, snowflakes sticking to his face. “So long as I don’t knock on the wrong apartment and end up in the foyer with a broken beaker jammed in the side of my head.”
Chapter 20
Mr. Owens. In the Apartment. With His Mouth.
Lillian regretted not going to see Reindead.
That regret had nothing to do with Sam Owens.
Nothing.
The regret came from the three hours she’d spent watching a group of drunken D-listers flail around in the Arctic while making snow angels on a special episode of Extreme Climate Research: Celebrity Edition. Tessa had returned to New York, leaving Lillian to her own devices. Reality TV devices.
Muscle-bound reindeer destined to save the world from an army of mythological Norse giants had to make more sense than eighties child stars operating a climatological facility with a full bar and hot tub. And yet, there she sat, cuddled comfortably in her old flannel pajamas and letting her brain rot at home in front of the TV.
Her brain should have been rotting at The Electric. She should have gone and not given anything other than Reindead a second thought. Walked into the theater and said, “Forget Sam Owens and his perfect hair and eyes the color of a frozen Finnish lake and the way his tight jeans hug his rock-hard—”
Damn it.
And there was the problem. Lillian couldn’t forget Sam as quickly as he did her when he invited a supermodel to his fancy office party. So much for all the flirting and the attraction Lillian could practically scoop out of the air between them, drop into a bowl, and enjoy with a big sexy spoon before it melted . . .
“God, why am I still hungry? A half of a bag of pretzels and a bowl of caramel coffee ice cream and all my metaphors still involve food.”
But showing up at The Electric and potentially coming face-to-face with Sam wasn’t something she could handle. He’d dinged her confidence and affected her in the most terrifying of locations—the heart. A horrible little organ. The source of all her troubles. And currently bleeding emotion for a man who preferred supermodels to substance. Lillian needed time to shore up her defenses. Pile up a few sandbags and take a cold walk or two . . . or three.
Basic common sense told her to avoid Sam like an infectious disease. One particular virus came to mind—Dickpox, aka Richard Bryant. But her ice bath at dinner with Richard, courtesy of his hotheaded sister-in-law, had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While he’d inundated her with apology texts, the most rewarding aspect was that the ordeal had forced her to focus on her problems rather than those of everyone else.
“I mean, I actually helped him try to make his ex-wife jealous. How pathetic. I should be glad they’re broken up,” she told Caesar Rivera, former husband of celebrity pet therapist Celeste Birkham.
He wasn’t in the room or anything. He was giving his exit interview on TV after being denied tenure at the climatological facility. Lillian had stooped pretty low to use the TV for adult conversation. How pathetic? Very. She turned it off and sat there quietly, nursing her tea and admiring her Christmas sprig on the credenza.
But the quiet unfortunately gave her time to think about Richard, and how she surprisingly felt sorry for him. Richard and Emily never appeared to hold any illusions about one another. They fit together like two rats in a sewer pipe. So if they didn’t work out, it didn’t grant a good deal of hope for Lillian ever finding someone who would put up with her smorgasbord of quirks—
A barrage of thunderous knocking shook a painting on the wall near the front door. Lillian flinched, her heart racing. More knocks hit the door like a battering ram. Fifteen minutes to midnight was a little late for visitors. She tossed aside the cozy blanket wrapped around her legs, set her tea on the coffee table, and then sneaked to the front door on her tiptoes.
Lillian squinted through the peephole. Not her sister’s latest fashion fad blocking the view. Definitely not Richard’s red head. Instead, a blue eye the color of glacial ice peered back at her. Completely unmistakable.
“Lillian?” Sam asked, thumping on the door again. “I’m trying to find Lillian Walker. If I have the wrong place, say so.”
Kind of impossible to avoid you if you show up at my front door.
She looked down and assessed the current state of her appearance. Her pajama top had a noticeably large spot of dried ice cream on the front. She ran her hands through her hair. Her fingers collided with a forgotten ponytail, turning it into a dangling mess. Even if she wanted to see Sam Owens, it would be a cold day in hell before he saw her like that. The moment demanded no-holds-barred lying.
She lowered her voice, deep and rough like a bar bouncer, and shouted back at Sam, “Wrong place, man. Get lost.”
Silence. She looked through the peephole again and saw Sam squinting back at her.
“Is it weird you saying that to me in a man’s voice turns me on?”
“What!” It slipped out. Undisguised.
“Aha! I knew it was you. C’mon, Lillian, if you won’t let me in then at least listen to me. I need to say this, and then I’ll leave. I promise,” he pleaded.
Lillian stood frozen in place, her eyeball pressed up against the peephole. Every instinct in her body wanted to throw the door open and let him in. Forgive and forget and move on. But a very annoying little voice whined shrilly in her brain, ordering her to . . .
Take that shirt off before I rip it off of you . . . No. Wait. That’s not right.
So maybe the voice didn’t know what it was talking about, but the abject fear encasing her heart certainly did. Fear kept hope under control because hope could be bat-shit crazy sometimes. Hope always looked on the bright side. Expected good things instead of bad. It got her hurt. So hope had a straightjacket of fear, and the roots of that defense mechanism reached all the way back to her childhood.
Back to an overwhelming sense of responsibility thrusting Lillian into assuming roles beyond her years. The role of taking care of Mom, too weak from chemo treatments to get out of bed. The role of getting Tessa up every morning, combing her hair and making breakfast because Dad had been up since four o’clock feeding and milking cows. There were many others, and they all wore her down. Made her dread the next day. Left her waiting for the other shoe to drop because it always did.
Lillian knew opening the door would be a mistake. Another opportunity for the Sam-shoe to drop. Another chance for him to worm his way back into her good graces. Her heart slammed against her sternum like a hopped-up hummingbird. Sam was already getting to her, loosening the restraints and letting her hope again. Lillian had to put a stop to it. Tell him to get lost and leave he
r alone . . .
Or I could listen. For a minute. Or two.
“Please, Lillian.”
“What is it? It’s nearly midnight.”
“I know. Sorry. I spent the past hour knocking on strangers’ doors to find you. I’ve been threatened by a jealous husband who thought I was his wife’s boyfriend and offered my weight in fruitcake by a very affable elderly lady over on Wallace Street, or I would have been here sooner.”
Lillian rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe you. You could easily have used Cedric to find my address, or done the hacking yourself. Don’t start off with a lie.”
“It’s not a lie. I found you the old-fashioned way. Hint helped me.”
“Hint?”
“Yeah. You know, the board game.”
Lillian shook her head, unlocked the door, and then jerked it open. “Are you high? Or drunk?”
Neither, from the look on his face. Clear blue eyes stared back, not a red vein in sight. No goofy grin. No wobbling. Sam stood straight and tall, a determined look on his face. A black wool coat with a gray scarf tied around his neck and a matching gray sweater with those dark jeans she loved—
God, that’s why you don’t open the door, idiot. Then she remembered her attire. Sam gave her a quick but not-unnoticed look up and down. Lillian folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to at least hide the ice cream spot.
“If you show up here at midnight you can’t expect me to greet you in an evening gown . . . looking like Jacinda Shields.”
