Page 35 of Four Dates and A Forever
“You tell us,” Owen said.
“You can go anywhere, literally anywhere, so why stay?” Gage held up a silencing hand. “And before you give me that ‘I need a studio’ BS, let me remind you that there are over twenty recording studios at your disposal in Portland alone who would drop everything to have you hang out there.”
“I need my own space. I’ve been around people nonstop for months. I need a place that I canbe.” Being around people wasn’t working. In fact, it was giving him anxiety.
Gage studied him very carefully and Rhett knew what he saw, a burnt-out musician who couldn’t write a song to save his life. “You aren’t alone.”
He knew Gage was talking about more than a house, but he didn’t want to go there. Not after the day he’d had. “I offered to move her into an Airbnb.”
“Did she bite?” Owen asked.
She damn near left marks. “No.”
“Maybe it’s because she’s being kicked out of her house.”
“I’m not kicking her out. Plus, I offered to pay for the rental and rent on her house. Generous on both parts if you ask me.”
Rhett would move into the rental if it had a studio. But with the giant countdown clock ticking away, he’d need every minute in his own private studio so he could create.
“What did she say when you asked her?” Owen’s voice told him he knew just how it went and that he found it hilarious.
About as well as asking to see what she’d been working on. She got defensive, secretive, and stubborn as hell.
“She pretty much told me to go screw myself.” Then she’d asked him about his day after confiding about hers. She was giving mixed signals and it was driving him nuts.
“Do you blame her?” Gage asked. “You’re kicking her out of her house after she was kicked out of her marriage.”
“From what I understand she’s the one who left Axel.” As he said it his gut told him there was more to the story. Not that the who mattered. Divorce was divorce and both parties suffered. And there had been a moment there, when they’d been talking about her mom, that he’d seen a brief flash of someone who’d had a hard go of it lately, who’d suffered a heartache that went beyond her divorce and understood deep disappointment and loss, but was pushing through anyway.
She was rallying, putting on a brave face when she was really feeling exposed and raw. Two things he could relate to.
“I don’t think she’s going to go easily.” Or at all. But a part of him, the lonely part, wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“What’s the guitar for?” Owen jerked a chin at Rhett’s bag.
“A friend reminded me that I’m the most creative when I’m on stage, so I was hoping it was free for the next hour.”
Chapter Nine
Dating Tips from Elsie Dodd
Never start with coffee. Start with dessert in case
you need to make a break for it.
The morning of the gender reveal party, with her eyes scratchy from lack of sleep, Elsie walked down the front steps of the house with an armful ofInfected Zoneposters, two gallons of fake blood, and a light coating of sawdust. She’d backed her car up against the bottom step after her last trip across town, but that still meant nine steps to navigate with a giant plastic meat cleaver strapped to her back like a samurai sword.
She made her way to her car and managed to locate her keys and pop the trunk, only to realize that with all the boxes, there was no way the signs were going to fit. The back and passenger seats were already taken up by decorations and three zombie mannequins, all belted in safely, so she couldn’t drop the seats down to make more truck space. Which brought her to the trunk, already filled with a ream of commercial plastic slit curtain and several tubs of her oatmeal and mashed banana recipe to create enough brain matter for the butcher-room she had planned.
“You know it’s against community ordinance to run one of those fishbowl parties out of your house. Attracts nothing but drug dealers and nefarious people.”
Elsie turned to find Ms. Gilford standing at the base of the driveway, garden clippers in hand, teeth bared in what appeared to be a smile.
“No fishbowl, just loading up some decorations for a party.”
Ms. Gilford craned her neck to look inside the car. “You using your inflatable friends to access the carpool lane illegally? Cuz I gotta tell you, Mr.Gilford bought one of them dolls as a plus one. Lola. I found her in the attic. A real beauty. Blonde hair, red lips, wearing a Marilyn Monroe dress. Filed the next day. No husband of mine is going to plus-one me.”
“Sounds like a solid reason for a divorce.” Elsie placed the jugs of fake blood into the trunk of her SUV.
