Chapter 3
LILY-ANN
The Bianco Carrara marble pleased Lily-Ann every time she stepped into her remodeled bathroom. She reveled in its pristine smoothness. Also, the faint gray veins interlaced within the stone matched the shade of her deep, luxuriant bathtub.
Even Anthony fit in that tub.
Better yet, he cleaned it afterward. She suspected that his tidiness was a consequence of his years in prison, which she’d told him made his assault conviction worthwhile.
Perhaps other men would’ve recoiled at that, but Anthony had simply looked at her with his grave face and smiling eyes.
He understood her. And she trusted him to know what she meant despite how she sounded.
She opened the linen closet, the interior of which she’d redesigned for her makeup and hair supplies.
Her skin routine centered around the newest line from Shiseido, her makeup was mostly Chanel, and her thick auburn bob would be a stringy mess without her Augustinus Bader haircare.
Which reminded her to gift a bottle to Ocean’s daughter, Riley, for her upcoming birthday.
She knew Riley would appreciate the indulgence.
Most of the Marigold residents preferred Ocean’s son, Miles, but Lily-Ann clicked with Riley’s abrasiveness.
Sometimes you wanted so desperately to connect with people that instead you pushed them away.
She dabbed Clive Christian No1 behind her ear and reveled in the scent of floral lime before shutting the closet door. A much better use of space, now that she kept her linens in the antique French chest at the end of her bed.
Speaking of bed … she found Anthony lounging on hers, watching her with one arm behind his head, his bicep bulging and his chest bare.
His torso was decorated with a tattoo of what she’d first thought was a lighthouse with seagulls but was actually a prison tower with doves.
She refused to admit that she liked his tattoos, but she found herself extremely fond of the skin beneath them.
“Morning, Lil,” he said in his rumbling voice.
That was how he always greeted her the mornings he woke up in her bed, like a ritual.
She liked that. Routine comforted her. Anthony worked until two or three in the morning, washing dishes at the Sidecar tavern downtown.
He usually slept in his studio apartment across the courtyard because he didn’t like messing up her cottage with the scent of stale bar and industrial soap.
Then he’d join her for lunch, stay through dinner, and leave for work at seven or eight.
She also liked him calling her Lil, despite a lifetime of insisting upon the full Lily-Ann.
Because she knew Anthony wasn’t shortening her name, he was calling her “li’l,” which she was to him.
Everyone else saw her as big and unfeeling, and treated her that way, but not Anthony.
He treated her gently, even when she struggled to return the favor.
She’d considered asking him to move in with her—largely because Sophie was so delighted about moving into Nicholas’s cottage—but she didn’t. She liked her own space. Also, since her ex-husband had betrayed her, she loathed the idea that she needed a man, a housemate, a partner.
On the other hand, she never minded having Anthony around; he was one of the few people she could say that about.
Despite being so large, Anthony knew how to make himself small.
He’d sit in her living room, gazing out the window while listening to his audiobooks and fading into the furniture.
He’d found a list of the “The One Hundred Best Books of the Twenty-First Century,” but he’d been too intimidated to start until Hamilton narrowed it down to “The Twenty Least Boring of the One Hundred Best Books of the Twenty-First Century.”
So far, he loved Claire Keegan and Cormac McCarthy. Anthony wasn’t stupid, though he certainly wasn’t intellectual. But then, neither was Lily-Ann. She didn’t care much for music or literature. What she enjoyed were data, rules, and puzzles. And, increasingly, Anthony.
She crossed to the bed and kissed him. She liked his big hands on her waist, tugging her lightly toward him, but she resisted the urge to join him.
She had a database waiting and she despised being late for work—even though she worked from home.
Come 8:45, she expected to be at her laptop with a coffee to her right and a notepad to her left.
She spent the first hour of work responding to unnecessary emails from coworkers, then began compiling the stats she’d received from other work teams. She enjoyed that. Well, she didn’t care about the stats, but she liked the process, imposing order upon the chaos.
She mostly ignored Anthony while working, though she smiled when she heard the shower running: the image of Anthony in her dainty shower reminded her of a bull in a china shop. Her gentle, painted bull.
He brought her a fresh coffee, then headed home to change and lift weights and whatever else he did at his own place.
At lunchtime, Lily-Ann heard Sophie and Nicholas laughing outside. She brought her salad to the front porch and watched them happily debate whose blender to keep after they moved in together: they had a lot of redundant housewares.
Sophie had begun dressing more formally for her job at the New Vic.
Wearing dresses and blazers. With her petite runner’s body—by which Lily-Ann meant petite Asian body, though she wasn’t sure if that was appropriate to even think—she looked cute in everything she thrifted.
Glossy black hair, brilliant clear eyes, sweet warm smile.
Lily-Ann adored her. And she appreciated her commitment to sustainable dressing; still, she mentally added “well-cut black blazer (new and expensive)” to the list of Christmas gifts she’d already started.
Maybe she’d tell Sophie she got it off a resale site, just to make her happier.
But it wasn’t her wardrobe that made Sophie look different these days.
It was her confidence. Her gaze was steadier, her chin higher.
Hell, even her ponytails were tighter. Lily-Ann toyed with the idea of charting the relationship between Sophie’s moods and her ponytails.
Maybe that would make a good Christmas gift, too. She’d ask Ocean.
For Sophie, what happened six months ago wasn’t about the murders, it was about her standing up to her stalker and rescuing Lily-Ann from Piotr.
She saw herself differently now. In fact, on one of her nights out with Lily-Ann and Ocean, she’d even said, “I mean, maybe, y’know, I’m sort of, I guess, like a totally bad bitch? ”
“An absolute monster,” Ocean said, while Lily-Ann chipped in with, “The worst bitch.”
Being in love also helped. Sophie glowed as she sang the praises of her old, cheap blender to Nicholas.
“I will not subject him to a garage sale,” she insisted.
“Maybe he’s ready to move on, to find another partner now that you’re taken.”
Sophie gasped. “He would never betray me.”
Lily-Ann watched them spend another five minutes flirting as they stacked kitchen goods willy-nilly into boxes. Which made her teeth ache. They put half the cloth napkins in with the silverware and the other half with the flour and sugar.
She grew increasingly tense until Anthony stepped onto the porch and put his hand on her hip. For a big man, he moved pretty quietly. He smelled of the mint bodywash she’d given him, and when she glanced up at him she saw laughter in his eyes.
“Don’t,” he said.
“But they’re doing it wrong!”
“They’ll figure it out, Lil. She’s only moving across the courtyard.”
She didn’t see how that mattered. “The distance isn’t the issue. You can’t—”
“Let me know if you need help moving furniture,” Anthony called to them.
“Oh!” Sophie said, not having noticed them. “Hey.”
“Will do,” Nicholas said. “Thanks.”
“And I’m happy to help label boxes,” Lily-Ann told them.
“Oh, Lily-Ann, go inside,” Sophie said. “The chaos will only make you crazy.”
“Not if you—”
“Speaking of chaos,” Anthony murmured into her ear before she could finish. “We’ve got ten minutes before you’re due back at your laptop.”
By which he meant there was time for rushed sex. Lily-Ann felt her body warm up. She liked rushed sex.
“Take a picture of the back of your TV so you know where the cables go,” she called to Nicholas and Sophie, before Anthony dragged her back inside.