Love Will

by Lori L. Otto

  “Nowhere,” I repeat the same location I’ve told everyone for the past two days. “And thanks for respecting my privacy. In fact, I’ve gotta go.”

  “You need your guitar, don’t you?” Ben asks.

  “I left it there yesterday.”

  “You what?”

  “It was snowing again last night.”

  “He got back kinda late,” Tavo says. “There’s gotta be a chick.”

  “Again. Privacy. Thanks.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ben says, trying to stop me.

  “Let him go,” Damon urges him.

  I love having Damon on my side.

  My heart stops when I see the restaurant. The OPEN sign isn’t lit. Why isn’t her place open? It’s almost noon. I wanted to see her. My priceless guitar is there. My brother’s book is there.

  When I try the handle, my fears are confirmed. The door’s locked. I peer inside. It’s dark.

  Fuck.

  The first time I knock on the door, it’s how any rational, sane person would do it, but by the third time, I’m pounding on the door with desperation. Just as I’m regretting not getting her number, I realize I could look up the number for Mrs. Livingston’s Kitchen.

  I step back a few paces on the wet sidewalk, looking up at the sign as I wait for someone to answer. On the seventh ring, I hear the door unlock.

  “Come in,” Shea says, bundled up in a thick blanket with a black and white striped knitted cap on her head and those suede and wool boots that I despise on her feet. I start to breathe again.

  “What’s going on?” I ask her.

  “The day the rest of the city starts to get power, mine goes out.”

  “Oh, shit, really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was it like this when you came in?”

  “It went out around three this morning. My apartment’s right next door, between the restaurant and the vitamin shop,” she explains.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that…” But I guess I kind of figured she lived close by. “So you’ve been without heat for nine hours?”

  She nods. “It’s much warmer in my apartment. There’s only one external wall.”

  “Is that where you were just now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, we can go back to my hotel. I mean, you’ll have to deal with Peron, Damon and Tavo, but–”

  “Do you want to come to my apartment? Really, it’s not bad. I have a fireplace.”

  “Uhhh…” Yes, I want to go back to your place.

  “Your guitar’s there,” she says, as if she needs to sweeten the deal.

  I smile at her, then nod. “Yeah, I do.”

  “I’m gonna grab some things out of the fridge that are going to go bad. Why don’t you get some drinks and just come down the hallway on your right, past the sink.”

  “I’ll be there in just a minute.”

  My first stop is to her bookshelf, where my book is nowhere to be found. The only thing I can think of is that the old man from yesterday took it, and I just didn’t notice. I’m crushed, and I don’t know how I’ll break the news to Jon. I’ll just have to be honest with him, and hope he can appreciate the thought that someone, somewhere will benefit from all the awesomely insightful and incredibly geeky things we doodled throughout the pages of that omnibus.

  I almost forget the drinks on the way to Shea’s apartment. I get four different things, so she can have a choice today.

  It’s still cold in her apartment, except for the living room where the fireplace is. My guitar is across the room from it, not too close, but not too far. Probably the best place for it, all things considered.

  Shea has spread out a blanket on the floor in front of her fireplace, with bowls and silverware and a few cooking supplies.

  “I assume you came hungry.”

  “I mean… I haven’t eaten, but I don’t have to eat now.”

  “I was waiting for you.”

  “Then, yes, I’m starving.”

  “I hadn’t planned on serving leftovers, but…”

  “If you tell me they’re from last night, I’m quite okay with that.”

  “We’ll just call it enchilada casserole. I think they’ll reheat over a fire better that way.”

  “Fine with me.”

  She adds a few logs to the fire, setting them in strategically, and then nestles the cast-iron skillet on top of them.

  “Looks like you’ve done this before.”

  “This isn’t my first winter in Minneapolis.”

  “I’m very lucky to have run into you.”

  “Yeah, you are,” she says, looking up at me. She holds my gaze, and I lean in to kiss her, accepting her obvious invitation. We meet awkwardly, but the way she makes up for it seems purposeful as her mouth captures my bottom lip gently before working its way up to cover my mouth fully. Her hands are on my cheeks, her thumbs tracing my earlobes.

  “Mmmm,” I moan lightly, grinning as we break away. “I just remembered. I had dreams of doing that again last night. This was better than my dream, though.”

  “You’re good with the lines,” she says to me.

  “Absolute truth. We were in the bathroom on the bus, though. Which is why this was better… because that bathroom’s kinda gross. I mean, we keep it clean, but to think of what goes on in that shower, I just…”

  She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “I didn’t need that. Although visualizing Damon naked… not so bad… but–”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Just kidding… but he’s not bad looking… you know that, right?”

  “Sure, but I don’t want to hear that… from you…”

  She tugs at the collar of my shirt until we’re kissing again. I relax into her. I can’t even remember a time when I felt like this. The blanket falls from her shoulders, and instead of moving it back up, I wrap my arms around her and pull her into my chest to keep her warm. Fuck, I know I’m borderline burning up right now.

  “Hot,” she breathes.

  “I know it is,” I agree, moving my lips to her neck.

  “Sizzling,” she says as she grips my shirt, but pushes me away.

  “Huh?”

  “The food. It’s sizzling. I think it’s ready.”

  “Oh! Yeah!” I laugh and let her go, trailing my fingertips up and down her calf as she leans into the fireplace with a potholder to retrieve the dish.

  “That smell. It smells just like the best night of my life.” She doesn’t turn around. In fact, she freezes after setting down the skillet. I’m a little shocked at the words when they come out, but there’s honesty behind them. I could apologize. I could try to explain them away. Or I could let them settle over the room and allow them to exist as the little truth bombs that they are, exploding in the electrified atmosphere around us, stealing the air that neither of us is brave enough to inhale at this moment.

  I finally make the first move, serving the casserole into the bowls in front of each of us. “Drink?” I offer, showing her the selection. She picks up a Sprite. I take a root beer and sit back down, trying to get to that relaxed state again.

  “You make me feel special, Will,” she says to me before she takes a bite. She looks troubled. I’m not sure why this makes her sad. “How many women have you been with?”

  I look away from her. I always knew this question would come up someday with a girl that might actually mean something to me, but I never knew how I’d feel or how I’d react. Now I know. I feel sick, and I’ve never wanted to lie about something more than I do right in this very moment.

  My appetite suddenly gone, I set it aside and fold my hands into my lap. I watch her as I answer. “None that left an impression. None that mattered.”

  “Again with the lines…”

  “Shea…”

  “How many?”

  “Countless is a good number,” I answer honestly, feeling more shame than I’ve ever felt. I can’t even look at her anymore.

  “Ballpark?”

&nb
sp; “Really, I’m a numbers guy, and I’ve lost count. I can’t even venture a guess. This has been my life for years. I’m not proud of it. But those weren’t lines…”

  “Let’s say you got something… an STD, and you had to tell people.”

  “I’d probably have to go public about it, I don’t know. But look. I go to the clinic all the time. They know me there. I’m the poster child for safe sex.”

  Shea rolls her eyes at me. “No, maybe someone who doesn’t have sex is the poster child for safe sex.”

  “No,” I argue, “no, no, that’s the poster child for abstinence. I know that kid, and he’s a great kid, but the poster child for safe sex actually has to have sex, and that’s me. I was tested before I left. I’ve been tested once since we hit the road, and that was just an extra precautionary thing… there was this one girl and nothing really happened.”

  “I don’t want to hear about the girls,” she says. “I really don’t want to know about your past.”

  “You asked.”

  “I just wanted a number.”

  “And I can’t give you that. It might be the one thing I can’t give you.” She’s silent. “Well, that and a disease… ‘cause I’m clean… because I’m careful… and I get tested,” I tell her, trying to lighten the mood.

  She finally looks over at me and laughs a little, even though she was trying not to. “Give me your bowl.”

  “You’re taking it back? Are you kicking me out?”

  “I’m heating it back up.”

  “Thank you, Shea.” I watch her add a little water to the skillet and put it back on the logs. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t really want to know the answer to that one. I’m not sure why I asked. I knew I wouldn’t like the answer no matter what it was.”

  “You were wanting my answer to make you feel like you’d been singled out. You just said you felt special, and now you don’t.”

  “Yeah,” she says softly, looking me in the eye.

  “This may make you think less of me, but I probably spoke to you more in the first half hour that I met you than I’d spoken to any of the others in all the time I knew them. You know more details about my life than any of them ever did. And I know more about yours. I would never dream of going back to their places… that kind of relieves me of my control, and I like to be the one in control. No one’s ever cooked for me… nor would I want them to. I’ve never wanted to see any of them the next day, or the one after that.

  “And Shea, I already know I want to see you tomorrow, too. I told you last night, you’re not like them. That wasn’t a lie, either.”

  “I think the blizzard’s messing with your head. And it probably doesn’t help matters that I’m the only woman you’ve been able to find in town, right?”

  I shake my head at her and at her ridiculous suggestion. “I never looked further than you. I see no reason to. And before you accuse me of using another line…” I know it sounded like one. I crawl over to her tentatively until I know she’s receptive to another kiss. This time, it’s not a deep kiss. No tongues, just lips, but still very slow and as sensual as the other ones. I don’t think this woman knows how to kiss without it evoking reckless, carnal thoughts in a man. If she does, I hope she’s reserved those kisses for every other man she’s ever known intimately.

  Look at me, trying to feel special.

  We both pull away when we hear our food sizzling again. This time, we stick to casual conversation so we can finish the meal together. It’s even better left over.

  Shea uses the afternoon off catching up on some accounting tasks she had been saving for the weekend, and I write three-quarters of a song in one sitting, which I’ve never done before. I had to draw my own staff paper and record myself singing and playing a few times, but it’s good. It’s uptempo, and I think Damon and Tavo will especially enjoy performing this one. When Peron pulls his head out of his ass, I think he will, too.

  After the sun goes down, no amount of stoking the fire is working to keep the apartment very warm. Although we’re both bundled in multiple blankets, now huddled together, we’re shivering. Shea’s even resorted to drinking spiked hot apple cider while I sip on coffee, but it’s of little use to either of us. I didn’t want to tell her the minute amount of alcohol she’d added had undoubtedly boiled off over the flame and was adding nothing to her unique concoction because I didn’t want her to have too much to drink tonight. As a trained chef, I’m pretty sure she knows that, anyway.

  “I have a couple of suggestions,” I say to her.

  “Shoot,” she says.

  “We go to the hotel. I think Ben left me his room key, so I’d have my own room tonight. Yes, it’s next to the rest of the guys, and it’s small, but it has electricity. At least it did earlier. I can call and check before we trudge back over there.”

  “It’s next to the other guys’ room?”

  “Yeah. And, oh, I mean… You can have that room tonight. I’ll stay with them.”

  “What’s the other option?”

  “It’s a physics principle. Thermal contact conductance.”

  “Which is… I mean, thermal is heat… contact is obvious. It sounds like we’re already doing it,” she says to me.

  “Well, we’d have to be in thermal contact, which means we’d have to be able to exchange energy through heat. Obviously, we’re sucking at that right now,” I tell her. She nods in agreement. “Remember, I’m giving you options. The first one’s not ideal, but it’s not bad.”

  “I know,” she says.

  “That sweater you’re wearing, and this jacket and shirt I’m wearing… these jeans… they’re not good conductors of heat. Blankets? Not good conductors of heat. They can keep heat in, but when your body’s just getting colder anyway, what good is that doing?”

  I take a deep breath before looking down at her to see her reaction. She’s doing that smile-thing again. At least she’s not poised to slap me.

  “So what are you suggesting?”

  “A little scientific experiment of the thermal contact conductance principle?”

  “You want me to get naked?”

  I swallow before responding. “Not by yourself…” I’d expected that to sound reassuring, but it didn’t at all. It totally sounds like I’m coming on to her, but I only am about fifty-percent.

  “It’s freezing in here!”

  “Is it warmer in your bedroom?” I ask her bravely. Her face gets serious.

  “The fireplace is in here.”

  “I know,” I tell her. “But it’s not doing any good. Maybe the other room is in a better spot. Has a better window?”

  She looks directly in my eyes and starts to nod her head. “It does.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll take the blankets?”

  She grins and stands up, gathering one of them. I bring the other two and follow her around the corner. The bedroom actually does have a better, west facing window. It’s possible the sun had been heating it up more when it was setting, but it’s just as cold in her bedroom, if not a few degrees colder. She doesn’t change her mind, though.

  I help her straighten the blankets on her bed, but then we’re both left shivering on opposite ends of it. “Just to keep warm, right?” she asks.

  “If that’s what you want,” I tell her, crossing my heart again. She doesn’t say that it is, and I don’t want to come out and ask her directly. I won’t make a move on her, but I certainly won’t stop her.

  Without hesitation, she starts removing her clothes in front of me with no modesty whatsoever. I follow suit, and don’t look up until I’m stripped to my boxers. She’s completely naked, her arms hanging loosely by her sides. I had no idea she’d be so comfortable–so confident–in her body, but she has every damn right to be. My jaw drops as I scan her impolitely. “You are sexy as fuck and I… just won’t look at you.”

  “You’re taking those off, right?” she nods to my
shorts.

  I look down at my growing problem, but nod affirmatively. “He’s paying very close attention to you, so you may not want to look down there right now.”

  She laughs it off, but I see her eyes widen as they dart below my waistline. I’m just as confident as she is, and don’t bother to hide the way I feel about her. She should know.

  “Maybe we should get under the covers,” she suggests.

  “We’re not conducting heat this way,” I tell her, lifting the blanket for her to get in first. She lies on her back, staring at the ceiling, so when I crawl in, I do the same, tucking the blanket around me to keep the heat in as much as possible. “Yeah, just for scientific purposes,” I tell her, reading her body language.

  “Just to keep warm,” she reiterates.

  “No funny business,” I say aloud.

  “Not at all,” she says, but her hand brushes mine as she says it. “We’re supposed to be touching, though, right?” she whispers playfully.

  I roll over on my side to face her. “Technically…” I pull my hand out from under the covers and move a few hairs off her forehead. She looks over at me. “We’re supposed to have as many contact points on the body to keep the heat moving between us.”

  “Okay,” Shea says, nodding at me and turning on her side.

  “Can I?” I ask her, reaching my arms out for her.

  “Yeah,” she says, allowing me to envelop her into my body.

  “Just ignore whatever is happening down there. I’ll make him behave.”

  She starts laughing, causing her whole body to move. “I don’t know what to do with this arm,” she finally says of her right arm.

  “Tuck it under the pillow? Or under my neck?”

  She chooses to place it under my neck, which puts our faces about an inch apart. Our legs are intertwined, and we’re pressed up against one another as much as we possibly can be.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Your body’s warm,” she says.

  “You gettin’ hot?” I tease her.

  I notice the fingers of her right hand running through my hair. I close my eyes and revel in the feeling.

  “Do you like that?”

  “I do, yeah,” I tell her.