Chapter 26
Heathcliff
“You’re not watching for Mina to arrive so you can run downstairs and beat me to her?” Morrie whispers in my ear.
I jerk in my chair, kicking a stack of books off the windowsill.
“I’m doing no such thing,” I mutter, wiping toast crumbs off my shirt.
I’d made my own toast this morning instead of waiting for Quoth to do it, which means I slathered the jam extra thick and cut it into triangles instead of rectangles, because I’m not a heathen.
The truth is, I am doing just such a thing.
Quoth is sleeping in, since he spends his nights watching over Mina at her mum’s flat.
So I have a chance to have Mina all to myself today if I can beat Morrie to her.
After our conversation last night, we agreed that we’d give Mina the option to be ours, instead of forcing her to choose between us, but I want to be the one to tell her.
Quoth is too shy, and Morrie will find a way to twist it to his advantage.
“Good. It would be pointless anyway. I’m not running around after her like a lovesick puppy.
” Morrie settles himself into his desk chair and unfolds the newspaper.
“I’m about to head out to chase down my lead on that ring we found in Ashley’s pocket.
I’ll check on Lancelot while I’m at it. But I’m not concerned about what you’ll do with her in my absence.
I welcome it. Show her that gruff Heathcliff charm.
Sweep her away with the kind of love that torments, and when she can’t take any more, she’ll come to me and I’ll soothe it all away. She knows what she’s missing.”
“Yes. An STI.”
Morrie shoots me a wounded look. “I’ll have you know that I’ve had all the tests, and I’m the picture of sexual health and vivacity. So says the sexual health nurse who bent me over the bed, although his motives weren’t purely clinical.”
“You slept with the sexual health nurse?”
I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Isn’t that what they’re there for? A very tender man.
Soft fingers. Exactly what one wants in a sexual health nurse.
” Morrie grins. “Don’t look so gloomy, Mr Gothic Antihero.
You should relax, let off some steam. Go find a genteel family to ruin or dig up a dead lover’s skeleton. You know, normal human things.”
I turn back to the window in time to see a flash of auburn hair heading around the side of the building, no doubt to escape Mrs Ellis, who is regaling an audience outside with salacious tales of the bookshop murders (if you were to believe her, there are now several murders, each more grisly than the last).
Morrie’s cackling laugh follows me as I fling myself downstairs and make it to the back door just as Mina arrives, carrying our usual morning bakery order under one arm.
“Thank you,” she says as she rushes inside, her cheeks flushed from her short run.
“I’m not really in the mood for Mrs Ellis’ silliness today.
I had a fight with my mother and… oh, you don’t want to know.
What do we have on the agenda today? I can get started on cleaning up all the sweets shoved down the sofa in the Children’s Room—what’s that? ”
She squints at my hands, which I hold out to her, the key tiny against my fingers.
I’ve done this all wrong.
“I got it cut for you yesterday,” I say gruffly. “You can use it whenever you want. Even if… even if it’s not work hours.”
I’m fine if you never wanted to leave.
“Oh. Thanks.” She clasps the key, her fingers nestled in mine. She makes no move to remove them, even though we’ve now been touching each other for far too long for either of us to pretend it’s an accident.
I open my mouth to say the things I rehearsed, the speech about how we all want her, and if that’s how she feels, we’re open to trying to all be with her, together. Nothing comes out.
I’m afraid. I hate that I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I’ll present our offer and she’ll smile sweetly and say that she’s only interested in Quoth and Morrie, and not only will I have to endure being without her, but Morrie will never stop rubbing it in…
and I’ll have to listen to them driving her wild while I dream of things that can never be and turn myself into the Heathcliff of my book, the wretched, rotten creature I despise.
So I say nothing. Instead, I close Mina’s fingers around the key and draw my hands away.
“Just don’t go snooping through my stuff when I’m not here,” I mutter.
She smiles. “You’re never not here.”
That’s because outside the bookshop is a big, wide world that I could damage with my Heathcliffness.
I step aside to let her in. Quoth swoops down from a dark corner and zooms between us, making a beeline for the oak tree in the centre of the village green.
Where are you going? I ask inside our heads. I’m trying to tell Mina—
I’m too nervous about how she’ll take it, he says as he disappears over the village. I have to do bird things.
Coward!
Takes one to know one!
“Where’s he going?” Mina asks.
“Only the wind knows,” I reply. “He’s been all weird and silent all night.”
“He’s always weird and silent.”
“Not like this.” He’s never been bold enough to suggest the three of us share a lover before. “He asked me if he could put some of his paintings up in the shop. With price tags.”
Mina’s face brightens. “That’s a good thing. Quoth’s an amazing artist. I bet people will buy his work.”
“Of course you’d say that. You’re the one giving him dangerous ideas. I bet you won’t be the one consoling him when nothing sells.”
“Right, as if you know how to console someone.” Mina hands me my black coffee.
“I know how to hand them a bottle of wine. Don’t sit with him in public again. You’re a bad influence.”
Grinning, she follows me into the shop. I lower myself into my chair, and Mina pulls over the velvet armchair opposite me. She spreads out her bakery purchases, and I grab a Cornish pasty.
“No Morrie today?” she asks as she takes a bite of a sausage roll.
Thank the gods. “He’s following a lead. Apparently, that ring is from Debenhams, so he’s gone to the nearest store to see if he can find out who purchased it.”
“Oh, interesting. That means it probably wasn’t part of a fashion show goody bag. Did he say if he thought it was relevant?”
I open the ledger and write the date on today’s page. “Honestly, I wasn’t listening. Morrie talks a lot, and most of it is self-congratulatory bullshit.”
“You’re not wrong about that. What’s on the agenda today?”
“We’re opening. We can’t afford not to. You okay with that?”
She folds her arms. “I’m the one who’s been telling you to open!”
“Keep talking lip and I’ll make you give tours of the murder site.” I lean back and crack the spine of a new book.
A tense silence emanates from Mina. I know the joke was in bad taste, but it will drive her away from me, and then maybe I’ll get five minutes of peace from her incredible scent and all the wanton, disgusting things I’m thinking about her, things the absurd bird and the criminal mastermind have planted in my head.
We can’t share her. We can’t.
Because that would mean…
All three of us kissing her, touching her, making her scream…
The silence stretches between us. I read the same sentence thirteen times.
“Um, if that was a joke, it was a bloody horrible one.” Mina looks at me expectantly.
I suppose she wants me to apologise, but if I open my mouth I will blurt out the truth – that I want her, that I’m falling for her with the same intensity I fell with last time, that I’m terrified of turning her into someone like me, the way I did to Cathy, that we don’t want to compete for her…
Mina sips the last of her coffee. She goes out into the hall, and I hear her flip the CLOSED sign to OPEN even though it’s seven minutes early. She throws open the door and yells into the street, “Welcome to Nevermore Books. Come in, come in, everyone is welcome!”
“No, don’t come in. We haven’t opened yet,” I yell back.
“We have now. Hello, Mrs Ellis. I hope you and your friends stay as long as possible. All day, in fact. Why don’t you ask Heathcliff to take you on the tour of the murder site? It’s on the way to the Erotica section, which I know is what you really came to see.”
Not Mrs Ellis. Please.
Maybe I should have just told Mina about the plan.
Mrs Ellis titters as she approaches my desk. Behind her, Mina waves as she slips deeper into the bookstore and leaves me to my fate.