Second Chance At Two Love Lane

by Kieran Kramer

  “Whatever you decide works for me,” he said.

  Ella knew damn well he didn’t have a food-wasting problem either, because she would guess—correctly—that he had a full-time chef who did all the shopping and kept an eye on the fridge contents. When he and Ella had been poor and living together, she’d handled all the food. He’d barely even known what they had in the cupboards. She would often whip up a delicious, simple pasta dish, usually with sautéed veggies and a bit of ham, chicken, or sausage—they could never afford steak—and often substituted beans.

  He’d been in charge of wine and beer and liquor. They were always having parties back then.

  “Who bought the hazelnut creamer?” Ella asked.

  “I did.” Hank wouldn’t tell her he’d bought it for her. She loved hazelnut creamer. If he told her, she’d get all flighty, maybe, and think he was coming on too strong.

  Her cheeks turned slightly pink. “You went to the store?”

  “That Harris Teeter you mentioned,” he said. “It has all kinds of great free stuff at the deli. I had a chunk of cantaloupe and a piece of prosciutto … together. It was delicious. And then I had a free cookie. Oh, and a chicken nugget.”

  He hadn’t had fried food in years. That greasy, fried chicken nugget dipped in mustard sauce had tasted like heaven. So much so, he tried to sample another one in the teriyaki sauce, but the lady told him no, only one nugget per person, and he’d slunk away feeling greedy, but still glad he’d had that nugget, like a real person who didn’t have to always watch his weight, thanks to camera angles and PR people breathing down your neck all day.

  “No one bothered you?” Pammy bumped into him on purpose. She loved knocking into him, punching him, and generally getting in his face. She could probably take him down if she wanted to.

  “No,” he said. “I wore a cowboy hat I found in the front closet. Must be Beau’s. And some sunglasses.”

  “Did you buy anything else besides the creamer?” Ella stood straight now. She sounded breezy. Too breezy. She was onto him. She knew he’d bought it for her.

  “I was going to,” he lied. “And then I got a business call and had to leave. You shouldn’t talk on the phone in a store. I hate when people do that.”

  “You could have gone outside and come back in,” said Pammy.

  “It was a long call,” he kept lying.

  He wished he could tell them that damn creamer had been hard to find. He hadn’t been to a grocery store in years. There were so many choices in everything, especially in creamers. It was ridiculous. He’d almost given up, and then suddenly he saw three different brands of hazelnut-flavored stuff and had to figure out which one Ella would like best. He chose the carton with the pretty pink font and the flower in the corner.

  “Hank!” Pammy cried. “We could have used some cereal and bread. And milk. And maybe some steaks and potatoes. Sour cream. Butter. Bacon bits. Beer. Cheetos. Geez. All the good stuff.”

  Ella looked at Pammy, and they both laughed. Well, Pammy snorted. Which was her way of laughing.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a busy man.” How could Hank explain what an adventure it had been merely walking into Harris Teeter? How free he’d felt? How purposeful, too? Finding that creamer had been everything because he’d wanted to please Ella. Actual food had been the last thing on his mind.

  And now he looked like an idiot. Buying only creamer.

  “Thanks for the creamer,” Ella said primly.

  See? She knew it was for her. He couldn’t have that. What had he been thinking?

  “Oh, sorry, but I … like hazelnut creamer now,” he said, scratching his jaw. It made a loud, manly sandpaper noise that he liked to hear when he was feeling not quite sure of himself. “I use it every day.”

  Sure he did! He despised flavored creamers. He took his coffee black. Ella knew that.

  She merely stared into the distance. He was such a bad liar.

  “My doctor told me I need more calcium,” he added for effect.

  “But this is non-dairy, cuz,” Pammy said. She was at the fridge now, peering into it to see what Ella had gotten. She held up the hazelnut creamer.

  “Whatever,” Hank said, silently wishing his cousin to perdition. “It’s still good for you. I’m going to make some coffee before our meeting. Anyone else want some?”

  “No, thanks,” Pammy said. “Especially with hazelnut creamer. Ugh! Let’s break out the wine and that weird-looking orange cheese in a tub.” She grabbed some crackers from the pantry.

  “I’m going to have wine and pimento cheese with Pammy,” Ella said. “But feel free to have coffee.” She still wouldn’t look at him.

  She and Pammy put the cheese and crackers on a plate, and Pammy took the bounty into the living room.

  “Meet me out here, guys!” she yelled. “I could watch the tourists walking on the Battery all night from this bay window.”

  “We’ll be there in a minute!” Hank put a K-Cup into the receptacle in the automatic coffee machine. As the brown liquid sputtered and flowed into his newly claimed Star Wars mug—no one else had better touch it!—he cursed a blue streak inside his head. “Feel free to use that creamer whenever you want,” he said to Ella. He hoped she’d drain the carton fast so he wouldn’t have to.

  “No, thanks,” she said, “I drink my coffee black now. Unflavored. Just coffee.”

  He picked up his mug. Took a sip. Forgot he had to add creamer. Added the hazelnut poison, cringing inside while he did so. “So when did the big change happen?”

  She finally looked at him. “The day after we broke up. I started drinking my coffee black, got both my ears pierced”—that was shocking! She’d been scared to do that!—“and started listening to jazz, the kind that makes you feel you’re in an existential, black-and-white movie with no ending.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “I also got a ride on a motorcycle with a guy I didn’t even know. I saw him drive by and called him over. He took me around the block.”

  No way. Ella was terrified of stranger danger.

  She flashed him a quick smile, and he could tell it wasn’t a friendly one. She was like a shark saying, Don’t mess with me.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “And I’ve never looked back.”

  Unlike him. He’d looked back a million times. “Taken any more motorcycle rides?”

  “One was enough.” She pulled a bottle of red wine out of the paper bag and went looking for a corkscrew.

  They couldn’t find one. But they knocked elbows looking through the meager kitchen drawers and cupboards. She actually got him right on the funny bone. An uncomfortable zing went up his arm. But he’d never tell. It was something, some kind of contact. Much better than nothing at all. Hell, he’d take her breath fanning against his cheek the way it used to when he’d pick her up and carry her—his woman—to their bed.

  “Shoot,” she said. “Pammy? Can you go look in the big house for a corkscrew, please?”

  “Sure!” Pammy called back. She thumped across the living room floor and slammed the front door behind her.

  Hank locked eyes with Ella. They were alone. But he could not focus on that. “You’re really nice to live with her this week,” he said, deflecting to Pammy. “And me,” he added. “Thanks again.”

  Ella’s shoulders drooped a little. “No, it’s okay,” she said. But she seemed troubled. She fingered the two wine glasses, pushing them around a little.

  “If it’s too stressful—” he began.

  “I’ll be fine,” she interrupted him, and abruptly left the counter to sink into a kitchen chair. She put her fist on her right ear and leaned into it. “I’m tired, is all. The show is over. You know what that’s like. And one of my clients is having issues I’m not sure how to handle.”

  He sat down next to her. “Is there anything I can do?”

  How familiar this all seemed. Talks around the kitchen table, hearing about her day, her woes, her triumphs.

  “No,” she
said. “It’s a conundrum for the ages.” She paused. “And Pammy’s great. She’s just a little lacking in confidence sometimes. She whips out her level when she’s not sure what to say. Have you noticed that?”

  “Yeah. She goes into construction-girl mode.”

  Ella chuckled. “She’s a sweetheart, though. Already I love her. I think what I’ll do this week is simply remind her that she rocks.”

  “Me too.” Hank decided he could be so much kinder, wiser, and more tuned in than he was. Ella reminded him of that, not by nagging but by her good example.

  The truth was, she made him a better person.

  They listened to the sounds outside. Somewhere a truck was backing up, making that beep, beep noise. Cars swept by. A gull cried.

  Hank hoped Pammy wouldn’t find a corkscrew and they’d have to send her to Harris Teeter for one.

  He looked at Ella. She looked at him. Her eyes always drew him in, now more than ever because he had no claim upon her whatsoever. He wished he’d never mentioned her at the Plaza to his parents. See what tea did to him? Made him a maudlin fool. With other guys, it was bourbon.

  With him—tea.

  And look where it got him. Here in Charleston, sitting next to the person who made him vulnerable, the only person in the world who could effectively break down the identity he had worked so hard to build up.

  She laid a hand on his arm, and the feeling of her fingers pressing into his flesh made him happy in the most inexplicable way.

  “I think you’re a good cousin,” she said. “Pammy’s lucky.”

  He looked down at her with a fondness she probably didn’t like but he couldn’t disguise. “You were always one to see the good in me.”

  “Because there is some, Hank. Give yourself some credit.”

  He was acutely aware of their two very human bodies. Warm flesh close to warm flesh. And she seemed to be just as conscious of the tension between them. They were mere inches from each other.

  Noooo, his brain said, even as her beautiful eyes hypnotized him.

  Noooo, his brain said again when he moved half an inch closer. She stared right back at him, her mouth slightly parted. He felt a lust that was more than lust. Because it was Ella, who was like a fine work of art to be appreciated, protected, adored.

  “But I will not, cannot, forget how things ended between us,” Ella added. “On my birthday, no less. I know it was a mutual decision, but the timing was terrible. Luckily, ten years have gone by, and I can sit in a room with you and hold a civil conversation.” She gave a little laugh.

  Ouch. That comment was like ice water thrown over Hank’s entire body. He leaned back in his chair. “Thank God for that,” he said, and tried not to be anything but cheerful.

  But he wished he could defend himself. At least a little. She’d admitted they’d both agreed to end it. Yes, forgetting her birthday had been a terrible misstep on his part, but hell. That was ten years ago! He’d been a kid—a kid so afraid of failure, his relationships had not been his top priority. His career had been.

  “I’ve learned since then,” he said. “I’ve learned about balance.” Sort of. He was still struggling with that.

  But they never got to finish the conversation because the front door whined on its hinges. “Hank Rogers?” It was a feminine voice, as finely timbered as a Bach cello suite performed by Yo-Yo Ma. Until it wasn’t. “Are you in here, you bloody man?”

  Hank’s eyes narrowed. It was Samantha. Ella recognized her voice too, obviously. Her eyes widened.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” Hank called, and stood up. Walked around the corner to the entryway. Joined his co-star on the front porch. Pulled the door halfway shut behind him to keep the gnats from flying in the house, supposedly, but really because he was embarrassed she’d tracked him down like a hunting dog on the scent, and he didn’t want Ella to witness his capture.

  “Look at you,” he said, “coming to see me. What a nice welcome.”

  “Welcome, my arse,” Samantha said. “I’m hosting a dinner across the street at the Carolina Yacht Club. You must come. And bring your family with you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Samantha Drake, three-time Oscar winner, was in this house,” Ella whispered aloud to herself for posterity. Why not?

  Thank God one of Hollywood’s biggest female stars had shown up to chase down Hank. Even when Ella made clear how Hell would freeze over before she’d forget their past, his gaze had been like a fair attraction—the booth with the huge teddy bear you could win if you shot three rubber duckies. She was such a sucker for that booth! He was no teddy bear, that was for sure, but he was big and warm, and if Samantha hadn’t appeared, maybe something totally wrong and stupid would have happened. Something that would have been from sheer muscle memory: Ella gliding into Hank’s arms and them making out like two twenty-one-year-olds who’d seen enough of the world to know they still knew very little about it. Clinging to each other, basking in pure, hot sensory experience, was a way to forget their confusion.

  Ella could still remember exactly what that felt like.

  When he’d looked toward the sound of Samantha’s voice, the cords of his throat had been taut, and the stubble on his jaw made her yearn to kiss him on his neck, right below his jaw. He’d always loved that when they were together.

  Ella was horrified and more determined than ever to steer clear of him.

  But then he came back inside alone. “Want to go to the yacht club for dinner?” he whispered, sounding harried. “She’s waiting out there. She said she didn’t want to come all the way in. She wants to get back to the yacht club.”

  Ella’s brow furrowed. “I think I’ll pass,” she whispered back. “I’m not dressed for it, and honestly, you’re the star. And”—she raised her right pointer finger—“I’m not family.”

  She could have been. She should have been.

  She was gratified by how disappointed he looked. “All right,” he said low. “This time I’ll let you off the hook.”

  “Have fun,” she said in her softest whisper yet—it felt way too intimate between them—and watched him walk reluctantly out of the kitchen. It was so clear that he wanted to stay with her right there. That was bad. Very bad.

  It was only their first night together.

  Get it together, Mancini.

  She peeked around the corner and couldn’t help admiring the way he visibly changed, though, when he left her. He squared his shoulders and walked purposefully toward the front door, like he was a king or the President of the United States or something. Of course, he could do that. He’d played a young version of a president once. And damned if he hadn’t played a king too.

  Ella kept her arms crossed over her pounding heart.

  And then she heard a thumping come from the front porch steps. “Yo!” It was Pammy. “I got the corkscrew! I also found a weird piece of hardware in the kitchen I might be able to use in my carpentry class. I think I can make really narrow strands of wood putty with it. Or caulk.”

  “Pammy,” Hank said, sounding almost jolly, but Ella knew that voice. He was totally stressed. “Give me that.”

  Ella listened from the kitchen, her ears wide open. She didn’t want to miss a thing. Samantha Drake, world-famous actor, was outside! And Pammy found a weird kitchen tool? Ella put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  “That’s a garlic press,” she heard Hank say. “Geez.”

  “Ohhh.” Pammy chuckled. “How was I supposed to know? I don’t cook.”

  “I can see why,” Hank said. “Samantha, this is my cousin Pammy. Pammy, this is Samantha Drake.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Drake,” said Pammy. “You’re lovelier in person than you are on-screen, and that’s saying something.”

  “What a delight you are,” Samantha said. “Please call me Samantha.”

  “Pammy can join us for dinner.” Hank sounded somewhat less stressed.

  “So you’ll come, Hank,” Samantha said. It was a statement. Not a
question. Almost a reprimand for his declining earlier.

  “Who could turn down a personally delivered invitation from Dame Samantha?” he shot back with the charm audiences around the world loved him for.

  Samantha laughed. It was low and velvety. Ella suspected Hank had just raised her hand and kissed the back of it.

  “My apologies, guys,” said Pammy. “But I’m not coming. I’m having wine and that weird orange cheese with Ella.”

  Ella giggled again.

  “Pammy, come on now,” Hank said. Ella could hear how embarrassed he was. “Samantha just invited us to a nice meal across the street at the yacht club.”

  “Sorry,” Pammy said. “I’m not that interested in sitting around a table and yakking about stocks and bonds or whatever it is people talk about at yacht clubs. You go do your thing, though.”

  “In that case, I’m ready to go,” Samantha said.

  Ella bit her thumbnail.

  Pammy must have found a way around them because she stopped in the kitchen and tossed her the corkscrew. “Be right back,” she said, and raced down the hall to her bedroom. Her door slammed shut behind her.

  “Sorry about that,” Ella heard Hank tell Samantha. “She means well.”

  “It’s neither here nor there,” said Samantha. “Let’s go, shall we? Unless you want to wait for Ella. Who is she? Another cousin?”

  “No, she’s actually an old friend from my early acting days.”

  Ella wasn’t sure she approved of how Hank described their history, but she also understood that revealing intimate details about his life wasn’t something he liked to do or should feel forced to do. And it could possibly kill Ella’s chances of keeping her role in the movie—that is, if Samantha was into Hank.

  “She’s playing the part of Wendy in the movie,” he said.

  Samantha must have forgotten. Ella reminded herself it was good to stay grounded.

  “Oh, yes,” said Samantha. “You wrangled that role for her this morning. She must be a very good friend.” She was fishing for insider information, big-time.

  “She is,” Hank said, not taking the bait.

  Ella felt vaguely annoyed because no, they were not very good friends, but she appreciated that Hank hadn’t thrown her under the bus either.