Chapter Nine
NINE
Blake was humming to himself for a while before he realized it.
He’d been in such a good mood lately. Even though it was Wednesday, and he had a lot of work to do before the weekend, none of it was stressing him out.
Not even the board meeting tomorrow night.
Maybe it was the cooler weather indicating the first signs of fall, or maybe because he’d been sleeping well lately.
Maybe because of the casual routines he and Maggie shared without even trying, cohabiting with surprising ease.
Maybe it was Rose. They hadn’t played together again since the weekend, but they’d chatted a few times, silly conversations about the mundane.
She didn’t say much about her job, but she seemed to set her own hours like he did, so she might be some kind of freelancer, maybe an independent contractor.
She slipped into his mind at all hours: innocuous thoughts about how she was spending her day; less innocuous wonderings about whether she’d played with herself since they last spoke, maybe using one of her toys, maybe thinking of him.
Instead of asking, he’d written a story that he could pretend wasn’t about her.
In the meantime, though, that night was the first episode of the new season of Marigold Murders, and he couldn’t wait to order a pizza and find out what adventures lay in store for the characters.
He was equally looking forward to Maggie’s return.
He hadn’t seen her at all today: he’d left for the office when she was still asleep, and she’d been gone when he returned.
She’d left him a note, though, saying what time she’d be back.
It was a sweet, unnecessary gesture, and he’d been thinking about that a lot, too.
As if on cue, the door swung wide. “I’m back!
” Maggie announced. She was already kicking off her shoes and tossing her keys into the key bowl when Blake looked up from the dishes.
With her windswept hair and broad smile, she looked like a character from an advertisement for fall: rust-red oversized sweater, plaid skirt, gray tights with ankle boots.
He took in her appearance with a smile and raised eyebrows. “How are you not hot in that big sweater?”
“I am! But I wanted it to be fall.” She pulled the sweater over her head.
The blouse underneath rode up as she did so, exposing a slender strip of pale peach skin below the hem of her yellow blouse.
Blake couldn’t look away, mesmerized by that glimpse of belly.
She tugged her shirt back into place. “Cute, right?” She struck a pose, and he wouldn’t think about the soft-looking skin beneath.
“Like an autumn postcard. Or a Dunkin pumpkin spice commercial.” He put another glass in the dishwasher and imagined her unbuttoning that blouse.
What was with him lately? He and Maggie had a good thing going.
Their friendship was easy and non-threatening, generally platonic with an undercurrent of harmless flirtation.
His latent feelings for Rose were bleeding into this real, in-person relationship, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to make a mess out of this roommate situation.
“I’m ordering pizza tonight,” he said, glad his voice sounded normal and not guilty. “You want in on that, or are you going out?” She’d been going out with friends a lot, which was probably why she appeared happy lately, too.
“Hook me up with the pizza. I’m staying in tonight.” She grabbed a beer from the fridge. “You didn’t have to do my dishes.”
“I was already loading the dishwasher. It’s no trouble.” He rinsed out the sink.
Maggie took a long swig of beer, then stifled a burp, making Blake grin. “I’m a couch potato tonight,” she said over her shoulder, heading to her bedroom. “My favorite show has a season premiere.”
Blake perked up, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “Marigold Murders? I’ve got it on my calendar.”
“Fuck yeah, Marigold Murders! I didn’t know you watched that.” She spoke loud enough to be heard from the bedroom. “It doesn’t seem like your kind of show.”
“I’ve watched every season.” From where he stood, he could barely see into her room, but not see her. “What makes you think it’s not my kind of show?”
“No reason,” she called back, her tone evasive. “Where are you getting pizza from? New episode drops at seven, right?”
“Lukulo’s. And yeah, seven.” He glanced at the clock. “What do you want on it?”
“I like everything. Except black olives.” Muffled noises came from her room, drawers opening and closing. She came out a few minutes later in pajama pants and a tank top, still drinking her beer. He wouldn’t think about how she’d changed with the door open.
Blake parked on the couch and ordered a pizza on the app. What a world they lived in, being able to order pizza on an app.
Maggie took the recliner. “What do I owe you?”
He told her. “Technology is great sometimes,” she said, tapping her phone screen. “I love that I can push a few buttons and send you money.”
They were on similar wavelengths. “We really do live in the future.”
“I know. I try to remember that when I’m annoyed at spam email,” she said. “Or dating apps.”
He’d just been talking about that with Rose that weekend. “The worst.”
“Do you think it was better when people went to bars to pick up randos?”
Blake shrugged. “You can still do that. The bars are full of randos.”
Maggie made a face. “No thank you. Definitely worse.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever had a good first date.” Blake had been on a few, and even his last relationship started with an awkward dinner. “It takes time to get past the weirdness.”
“You sure it’s not because you’re weird?”
Blake opened his mouth to retort when the twinkle in her eyes gave her away. “Ha ha. If I’m weird, you’re weird, too.”
“Never said I wasn’t. Here I am, in all my weirdness.” She spread her arms wide, still holding the beer bottle, then seemed to remember it was there and took a sip. “It’s what makes us good roommates.”
Yes, their complementary weirdness. They’d moved from strangers to friends in the last few weeks, and he looked forward to seeing her. Sometimes friendship snuck up on a person so gradually, it was easy to miss.
Maggie started tapping away at something on her phone, so he opened his laptop while they waited for the pizza.
His story was nearly finished, and he only needed to skim it over before posting.
He started rereading. That was a mistake with Maggie visible in his peripherals.
He started imagining her in this scenario …
no, that wouldn’t do. Not picturing Maggie in sexual situations had become a full-time job.
He had to turn away to get his piece finished and finally posted.
The door buzzer indicated the pizza, and they shuffled around getting everything ready in time for the seven o’clock start of their show.
He got his first beer and Maggie got her second, then she moved from the recliner onto the couch with him, the pizza box open on the coffee table.
Blake had gone with a supreme minus the black olives.
They settled in with their first slices while the menu screen played silent scenes from last season.
“OK, refresh me.” Maggie gestured at the screen with a piece of pizza. “Sandra left Juan after the ultimatum, right?”
“You expect me to remember all this?” Marigold Murders was as much soap opera as it was crime thriller. He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to recall the season finale.
“You remember everything.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping. I’m remembering. And I don’t remember everything.”
“You remember every one of those plants and what you need to do to take care of them.” She waved her hand toward the wall of plants.
Blake looked up at them as if seeing them for the first time. “No, that’s why I have the binder. Because I don’t remember.”
“You never use the binder.” She bit into her pizza and pulled it away from her mouth, a long string of mozzarella keeping them tethered until she wrapped it around her finger and popped that finger between her lips. He tried not to look at her lips. What was she saying? Right, the plants.
“The binder is in case I need to instruct someone else. Like when you need to take care of them.” The television screen refreshed, listing the first episode of the new season. “OK, it’s up.”
“You didn’t review anything!” She tried to snatch the remote out of his hand as he started the episode.
“They always do a recap of the previous season before they start. Now shush.” He held the remote out of her reach and took a bite of his own pizza.
Sure enough, the season started with a recap. And yes, Sandra left Juan after the ultimatum, where she told him that he had to stop trying to pursue his degree at the same time as working two jobs or she would leave him.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “He’s only trying to better himself.”
“He’s not paying any attention to her, though. I see her point.” The next scene recaps played out, and Blake’s memories came back to him as they did. “I forgot about Pauline and the baby.”
“Nobody cares about that baby.” Maggie wrinkled her nose and said the next line through a mouthful of pizza. “Pauline should go back to Richard.”
“What? No. Richard probably killed Finnegan and his associates at that meeting. Don’t you remember how they edited the scene? It was obvious.” Finnegan’s murder was one of the biggest cliffhangers of the previous season.
“Finnegan deserved it. He was selling drugs to those kids, remember? And trying to get Lee to start dealing, even though Lee was out of the business? Finnegan was trying to keep him back in.” Maggie got more animated as the title screen came on. “Look, new opening title card.”
“You seem to remember everything pretty well without my help.” Blake couldn’t help smiling. None of his other friends watched this show, and it was a ridiculous show, but he loved it.