Jenny looked at Abby closely and Abby figured her friend knew she was telling tall tales, or short, uninformative ones, but Jenny’s face cleared and her eyes got soft.
“He’s being okay with you?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Abby replied, setting the kettle on its charge and flipping it on. She turned back to her friend and rested her hips against the counter. “He’s a…” she hesitated and then went on, sharing just a little bit, “Jenny, I think he’s a good guy. He thinks I’m funny and…” she stopped.
“And what?” Jenny prompted.
“And that’s it. It’s weird sometimes because he’s so hot and, well, he’s rich and paid for me to be with him but when I forget that, it’s okay,” Abby told her.
“You’re sure?” Jenny asked and when Abby nodded, she watched her friend’s body relax and realised just how much Jenny was shouldering this burden.
She’d been right.
Definitely right.
Abby wasn’t going to share any of the things that were not okay with Cash.
Further, Abby wasn’t going to share any of the feelings about Cash she felt relatively certain Jenny would not think were okay.
Jenny walked to a cupboard and pulled down a mug asking, “So, what does Hot Guy, International Man of Mystery, Spy Master General wear to bed?”
At that, Abby knew, for now, everything was okay.
Chapter Seven
Late
Abigail Butler was stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She thought she was being smart. She had it all planned. Then, as usual, it all went awry.
She’d decided, since tonight was the night the use of hands, mouths, touching, tasting, etc. was going to “begin”, she’d delay it by spending part of the time together with Cash cooking.
What she wanted to make for dinner would take a half an hour, more if you counted cooking time.
So she decided to arrive at a quarter to seven and still be cooking when Cash got home. He’d have to wait to do… whatever-it-was-he-was-going-to-do… until after she was done cooking, the food was done grilling and steaming and they were done eating.
She lived in Clevedon, he lived in Bath. It was a forty-five minute drive.
What Abby didn’t know since she usually took the train or travelled during non-rush-hour-times, was that it was a forty-five minute drive on a good day.
On a bad day (which Abby seemed to be having a lot of lately or, perhaps, for the last six years) and traffic was heavy and an accident meant the cars were crawling on the motorway, it took a whole lot longer.
Furthermore, it was against the law to talk on your mobile in your car in England so when Cash called at seven twenty-five, she couldn’t answer.
Even though she turned up her music very loudly so she couldn’t hear the phone beeping to tell her she had a voicemail message, it rested on her passenger seat in a threatening way like a coiled snake waiting to strike, freaking her out throughout her journey.
Last, but not least, it was a veritable impossibility to park in Bath. She’d discovered that the day before but somehow forgot it in the twenty-four hours since driving there last.
She was a half hour late to be there for Cash’s arrival. It became forty-five minutes late by the time she parked and fifty-five minutes late by the time she hoofed it in her high-heeled boots to his house from her parking place which she was sure was closer to Sri Lanka than his townhouse.
She listened to his two word voicemail message on her walk to his house.
“Call me,” and he sounded not happy, to say the least.
At his door she fumbled clumsily in her purse for the key (which she should have extracted on the walk there, but she hadn’t thought of that), found it, unlocked the door and rushed through into the hall.
There were welcoming lights on and she had to stop when she saw them, the pain in her stomach was so acute.
If it was dark and she got home before Ben, she lit the house (just here and there, not anything blazing and environmentally unconscious) so he wouldn’t have to grope around in the dark to find the lights.
She’d never told him to do it but he must have realised her intent and, awhile after they were married, Ben started to do it for her too.
She thought of them as “welcoming lights” because they said someone was home, someone who cared about you, someone who didn’t want you to walk into a cold, dark house after a rough day and grope around to find a light.
It never occurred to her that Cash Fraser was the kind of man who wouldn’t want her to grope around to find a light.
She recovered herself with a deep breath and walked on leaded feet down the hall, around the corner and down the stairs toward the sound of jazz (not new-age, gross jazz but old-age, fantastic bluesy-jazz).
By the time she made it down the stairs, Nina Simone had started singing, “Tell Me More and More and Then Some”.
She saw Cash was in the kitchen, a tumbler of Scotch in one hand, the other hand clenched in a fist that was on his hip. He was wearing a pair of dark brown suit trousers, a dress shirt the colour of which was an attractive blend between dandelion yellow and burnt orange that had a subtle sheen, it was unbuttoned at his throat and the cuffs were turned back.
His eyes were locked on her.
And he looked less happy than his voice sounded on her phone.
“Cash –” she started.
At the same time he demanded, “Where the fuck have you been?”
“There was an accident on the motorway and then –” she began.
He cut her off. “Do you have your mobile?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Did it occur to you to phone to let me know it wasn’t you in a fucking accident on the motorway?”
Two things came to Abby at once.
First, the reminder that she knew exactly how it felt to learn someone you cared about had been in an accident on the highway.
Second was the shocking knowledge that Cash wasn’t angry because he was losing time with her, valuable time he’d paid dearly for. He was angry because he was worried about her.
She knew how she felt about the first, it tore at her soul every day. The second she didn’t know what to do with.
Cash didn’t give her time to figure it out.
“Abby, answer me,” he clipped.
“No,” she started and when his eyes narrowed dangerously, she hurried on, “I mean, yes, of course it did. But it’s illegal to talk on your mobile in the car.”
“Next time you’re going to be an hour late, darling, rest assured in the knowledge that I’ll pay the fucking fine if you get pulled over for talking on your goddamned phone,” he returned and Abby thought it was safe to say that Cash Fraser, International Hot Guy Extraordinaire, was pissed off.
“Cash –” she began again.
And again he cut her off by demanding, “Get over here.”
She gave a start. “What?”
“I said, get… over… here.”
This, Abby decided, was not going well.
She briefly considered running for her life.
She then figured Cash would catch her. His legs were longer and even though he was standing behind the counter and she couldn’t see it was unlikely he was wearing high heels.
So, with no other option open to her, she moved toward him and as she did so he leaned forward and set down his tumbler with an angry clunk.
When she got within arm’s reach, he snatched her purse from her and tossed it unceremoniously on the counter even though it was Coach and no one should treat Coach like that but she wasn’t going to share that morsel of knowledge with Cash at that moment.