Henhouse

14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A chill spring rain pattered the windows as Theo entered his apartment still donning his blue-collared shirt and work boots.

He was ready to swap them for soft-washed Henleys and relaxed-fit jeans.

Regardless of how much he liked his job, there were still weeks he counted down the hours until the weekend. This was one of them.

Theo slipped out of his boots and hung up his messenger bag that carried all manner of release forms, code documents, and his trusty clipboard. He padded across the laminate floors to his sofa and plopped down beside Schilling, who had apparently used his spare key to let himself in.

“You look like hell,” Theo remarked as he assessed Schilling from head to toe.

“I called out today,” he replied.

“Yeah, I know, so why are you on my couch?”

Schilling shrugged. He didn’t actually look sick.

Probably just needed a day. Theo had given him the key because his friend frequently needed a change of scenery.

Somewhere to sit quietly and not be bothered.

Theo had once thought himself brooding and dramatic.

He had nothing on Schilling’s lows. The goof in daylight could turn into a real downer after dark. Especially lately.

“Sorry, I can go.” Schilling moved to get up.

“Don’t be stupid.”

Schilling sighed, leaning back. Theo spotted the burnt-down candle sitting on his coffee table. Poured into a glass jar, its edges were stained with soot and only a trace of the wax remained at the bottom.

“It’s my mom’s. I’m going to meet Eggplant in a bit,” Schilling explained, but his words sounded heavy, and Theo wondered what the hell had happened now to have his notoriously jovial best friend acting like Eeyore.

His somber tone was made unintentionally funny by using Effie’s vegetable alias.

For some reason, it pleased Theo that Schilling didn’t know her real name.

Like it was his secret or some nonsense.

“Why don’t you reschedule? I’m sure she’d prefer it to hanging out with a rain cloud.”

“You’re so nice,” Schilling drawled. He grumbled and rubbed his hands over his face, letting out an agitated growl. “I’m sick of me too, by the way. It feels much better not being a rain cloud.”

“Do you want me to go with you? I can cancel on Talia.”

“What are you two doing?”

“She wants me to be on her trivia team because I’m the only one in her inner circle who knows about literature and crap. ”

Schilling filleted him with a look. It was effective enough to remind Theo that Talia was not the relationship he wanted. She wasn’t his soulmate.

“It works for now,” Theo snapped, not interested in being held accountable to his own ambitions at the moment. It felt like too long sometimes, that he’d spent searching for her , and when he was weary of the search he liked to have a warm body—to have Talia—in his bed.

“Sure.” Schilling’s huff was undeniably loaded, but Theo didn’t take the bait. “Go to trivia. I’m cool. I’m sure we’ll have fun.”

“That’s the spirit.” Theo slapped him on the back. Schilling exhaled, and it looked like it might have been the first time he had all day.

Theo wandered to the fridge and pulled out a beer. He took a sip, then as casually as he possibly could said, “Tell her I say hi.” He didn’t know why he’d said it, but the grin on Schilling’s face was fiendish.

“Should I not make a move then?”

“Do whatever you want,” Theo responded, hoping to sound chuffed, but he could tell Schilling didn’t buy his nonchalance. He barely bought it.

“So you’d be totally fine with me exploring things?”

“Whatever gets you out of the rain, man,” Theo quipped.

Schilling loosed a laugh, and it was good to see him brighten again, even if it was at Theo’s deflection.

He never could hide his feelings from Schilling even if he hid them from himself.

“I promise to do some recon for you, but if she kisses me first?” He raised his hands, palms up as he shrugged his shoulders.

Theo smirked at him, knowing full well there would be none of that.

Schilling was razzing him to try to get him to admit some kind of feeling for Effie.

Trying to get him to make the right choice.

Or maybe there was a chance they’d hit it off because the knot in Theo’s stomach only grew as Schilling grabbed the candle and winked at him before slipping out the front door.

Theo was ninety-eight percent sure Schilling didn’t want Effie. Maybe. Maybe it was eighty-twenty. It didn’t matter. Except that when he slunk back to his couch and sank into the soft cushions, it felt like it absolutely did.

Effie left the lights dim in the store, leaving only a couple of lamps she’d stolen from the office lit on the fabric cutting table.

She didn’t want anyone to mistake the store for being open and walk in on her date with Schilling.

If she could even call it that. She hadn’t thought to ask, but it seemed date-like.

More so than the dozen dates she’d ever been on.

Those had all been some variation of walk-and-talk meetups over coffee, ice cream, and, on one occasion, bowls of chowder to go.

For some reason, she had thus far only attracted guys who preferred a get-to-know-you where they could literally turn and run at any given moment.

None of them had resulted in second dates.

Effie hadn’t wanted them to. Either their names weren’t sweet enough—because obviously her beloved’s name should taste like dessert every time she spoke it—or the conversation had been so stilted it was painful.

There was the one guy who wouldn’t quit talking about himself, his car, or his ex-girlfriend.

She did, in fact, cut and run, banking a left while he went straight through a crosswalk, and she never saw him again.

Effie frequently wondered how long he kept talking before he realized she’d vanished with her cookie dough ice cream. She’d given up on dating after that.

That was two years ago.

Exactly why Hope had every right to give her grief about not getting out into the world. She was too young for spinsterhood.

But tonight felt different. There were walls, for starters.

And an activity that demanded a certain amount of dedication and time commitment, and therefore couldn’t be sped up like a walk and talk.

She was glad for that because she liked Schilling’s company the other night.

He had an ease about him like dappled sunlight through spring trees.

If she was being honest with herself, which she tried hard to be, she would say she was nervous.

She hadn’t been kissed in far too long, and the possibility of it was enough to turn her stomach.

Maybe she should take it off the table, but that thought made her sulk.

Effie sighed as she sat on the stool behind the cutting bench.

Her mind was a tiresome place indeed.

It was almost six, which meant Schilling would be there any minute.

Effie arranged and rearranged the bowl of beeswax flakes, essential oil bottles, and votives she had procured for their task.

She checked the plugs on the two hot plates before her and promptly twiddled her thumbs as she waited.

Effie tapped her fingers, bopping her head side to side, anything to edge out the nerves.

Her subtle fidgeting turned into actual swaying as she hummed the tune to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”

The humming and tapping gave way to full-on singing.

Unlike Hope, Effie couldn’t carry a tune.

But it didn’t stop her from belting out her favorites or singing while she baked.

Now the song lodged in her brain and demanded to be sung over and over again.

Well, the chorus anyway, since she was never very good at remembering lyrics if she wasn’t singing along to the actual song.

This time she added some instrumental ba-doop-di-doops, closed her eyes, and wailed the chorus.

So loud that she apparently didn’t hear the door chime .

“Sorry, this a party for one?”

Effie blanched, eyes popping open to find Schilling standing before her, arms loaded with charcuterie fixings.

She’d never wanted to turn into a bug and crawl away more.

Effie wasn’t sure where to go from here.

When you sound like a dying crow with Broadway dreams there’s really no use in denying it . “I can’t sing.”

“I think you’ve demonstrated that, in truth, you can,” Schilling goaded, a devilish quirk to his brow.

“Let me rephrase. I’m not a good singer.”

“Not everyone can be. That’d be boring. Far more so for me if I walked in here and you sounded like an angel. How dull, honestly.” Schilling offered her a genuine smile that set Effie totally at ease. He began unloading his goodies onto the worktable. “So you like Taylor Swift?”

“She’s okay,” Effie said. “I like some of her stuff, not all.”

“Yikes, don’t tell Theo,” Schilling warned like they’d cross paths again soon. Maybe that was a good sign. He was already thinking about taking her out again, with his friend, apparently, but it still seemed like a positive omen.

“He’s a fan?”

“Taylor is his Queen,” Schilling said with a chuckle.

Effie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She examined the spread that Schilling brought—an aged maple cheddar, apple-baked gouda, smoked pepperoni, and a ridiculously large baguette.

She noticed the bottle of red wine he uncorked. All the markings of a genuine date.

“You brought snacks,” Effie said a bit redundantly, but she wanted to acknowledge the gesture while feeling out why he’d brought said snacks .

“A thank you for helping me out. I figured it could be a working dinner of sorts.” He poured some wine into one of the plastic cups he brought and handed it to Effie. He filled his own and raised it in a toast. “To new friends,” he cheered and clinked her glass.

Effie sipped, willing the wine to calm the drop of her stomach. Working dinner. Friends . Those were not good signs. Effie looked down at her glass for a long moment trying to psych herself up, but she only succeeded at looking utterly morose.

“Everything okay?” Schilling asked, reaching for the hand Effie had laid atop the table.

His brown eyes were warm, ringed with hints of honey gold.

Schilling’s dark, near-black brows knit together like he was truly worried something bothered her.

It was nice. So was the warmth of his hand on hers.

That seemed like a good sign. Effie scolded herself internally to quit it with the play by plays and just try to enjoy the evening.

“Totally. Sorry. Spaced out there for a sec.”

“Mulling over your setlist?” he joked. That charming, goofy smile returned to his face. All Effie could do was laugh. She rolled her eyes and playfully nudged Schilling’s shoulder. “Almost forgot,” he said and pulled a nearly spent candle from his backpack. “The target.”

Effie took hold of the candle. Unfortunately, the label was ripped leaving only the word winter visible. She lifted the candle to her nose and sniffed. “I think I’m getting fir trees and . . .” She sniffed again. “Maybe frankincense and orange? What do you smell?”

Schilling took it and made a show of investigating the aroma of the candle. “Notes of honey perhaps? A touch of vanilla?”

“Really?”

“Maybe not honey. Mint? ”

“I think I got that too.”

“This feels very CSI: Bath & Body Works,” Schilling drawled. Effie chuckled as she poured the flakes into the pans she’d set warming a few minutes prior. “So how’s this work?”

“We melt the wax, mix in the oils, set the wicks, pour the wax. I thought we’d make two so you have options.”

“That feels doable. Like maybe I could have googled it and saved you the effort?”

“No. I’m glad you asked. This is more fun.”

He nodded in hearty agreement. “Absolutely.”

Effie was having a wonderful evening. Schilling was charming and witty and good for a laugh.

They bantered back and forth while the wax melted, and they gorged their way through Schilling’s entire charcuterie plate.

They sipped their wine and got to know each other except when they were adding oils to the wax.

That apparently demanded utter silence, total concentration, and the occasional Emeril Lagasse–style Bam! From Schilling.

Effie learned that his favorite book was Gulliver’s Travels , that he was an only child who had a short-lived magic career in sixth grade as Boyo the Magnificent, and that it was weird growing up not knowing his biological dad, even though he loved both his parents.

Effie shared that her favorite music was by Fleetwood Mac, not Taylor Swift, that her absolute worst job required dancing in a Boo-Boo Bear costume on a hayride for a local Jellystone Campground, and that not knowing your dad or having him around in adulthood was a struggle she wouldn’t wish on anyone .

The candles were set, and Effie dared lift hers to sniff the cooled wax within the short, modernly elegant glass votives she had chosen for the project. Schilling did the same with his. “I’m not sure mine’s it,” he confessed.

They swapped and sniffed again.

“I’m not sure either of them are.” Effie pouted, turning her nostrils back to the original candle. “They’re definitely in the same family, but they’re not quite right.”

“Agreed. But I think yours is closer.”

“I think you’re just being nice.”

“Scout’s honor, I’m telling you the truth.”

“Were you a Boy Scout?” Effie asked, deadly serious.

Schilling’s face went tight. “Does it matter?”

“If you weren’t, then I cannot trust you at your word. You’re out here masquerading as a Scout. Now if you were a Scout, I’d know you were swearing on something real.”

Schilling finally realized she was pulling his leg, but still pondered for a moment. “Hadn’t thought of it like that before.”

Effie smiled. “I think it matters.”

“Indubitably,” he asserted. He leaned in close like he was about to tell Effie a secret, and whispered, “I was a Boy Scout.”

The moment stilled. Butterflies flitted through her chest. He didn’t pull away instantly, maybe this was her opening. She blurted, “My real name is Effie, by the way. Thought you should know that before I . . .” She leaned in closer, going for the kiss, the courage bubbling up from her toes.

But Schilling pulled back. “Effie Thatcher?”

Embarrassment and rejection hit her like the stench of burnt croissant as she deflated. “Yeah, why?”

“I was dating your cousin. I’m Brayden.”