‘I don’t know either.’
‘You must have had some idea when you came to the Sawmill.’
He glanced around the apartment. It was barely big enough for one.
‘Do you need a place to stay?’
He wanted to say, ‘No,’ but he had to say, ‘Yes.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘For now.’
‘I can pay.’
‘I don’t want that money.’
He felt embarrassed. ‘It’s all I have.’
She was staring at the wall. ‘Then stay for free.’ She drained her cup and got up.
‘You got some blankets or something? For the couch?’
‘You can sleep with me. Sleep.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Sleep.’
Man, that humility thing was really getting a workout tonight.
*
By four in the morning, he was all ready to check into a motel. Sleeping with Lucia was impossible. He’d never known that if you did nothing with it a hard-on could last all night. It was a case of ignorance having once been bliss.
Bliss newly defined was Lucia in the little white panties and crop-top she called pyjamas. She was apparently so moved by his sexy presence that she fell asleep before he’d even got out of the bathroom. He slid under the covers beside her, lay on his back, and watched the ceiling fan revolve for the next two hours while his groin ached. Im-fucking-possible.
Only the fact that her sister had just died stopped Tom from putting a careful hand on her breast and seeing how things went from there. At four thirty he conceded defeat and shut himself in the cramped bathroom. He came as quietly as a prisoner, then crept back to bed.
‘’Kay?’ she mumbled, making him jump.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
Still half asleep she turned over to face him and murmured, ‘You’re an asshole, you know that?’
‘Yeah,’ he said again. He didn’t know whether she meant for lying beside her all night with a hard-on, for jerking off in the bathroom, or just in general, but right now he thought she was probably right on all counts.
Even so, Lucia fell asleep again with her head on his chest and her right hand curled loosely on his hip.
Tom sighed and decided to write off the night’s sleep.
If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have heard the front door open.
Just as the sky started to turn cobalt from navy, the soft metallic click made him hold his breath, his ears straining. The smallest squeak of hinges would have gone unnoticed, except that he was already quivering like a pointer, all senses alert.
He rolled over and put his hand on Lucia’s mouth and his lips next to her ear, barely whispering, ‘Lucia. Wake up.’
She tensed against him.
‘Somebody’s here. Is there another way out?’
She shook her head.
‘Stay here. Don’t move.’
She nodded. He let go of her mouth, slid silently out of bed and behind the bedroom door. He felt naked and vulnerable in just his shorts. His eyes darted around, in search of a weapon, but there was nothing. He winced as the tender back of his head nudged a picture frame.
Now he could hear the tiny creaks that told him someone was moving across the living room. He put his eye to a crack in the door and saw the shadowy figure of a man rounding the couch. Just one man.
He glanced at Lucia. She was still in the position he’d left her in, but he could see the dawn light reflected in her open eyes as she watched him, watched the door.
Carefully, Tom turned to the wall and lifted the large picture off its hook. Close up, he could see it was a psychedelic print of John Lennon wearing little round glasses and a T-shirt reading ‘Give Peace A Chance’.
As the intruder entered the bedroom, Tom shifted his feet so he was firmly braced. Then, as the man cleared the edge of the door, he swung the glass-fronted print into his face.
The glass shattered loudly and the man dropped with a cry of pain and surprise, but only to one knee. Tom tried to raise the print and hit him again, but the man grabbed one edge of the frame and held it down, over his own head, so Tom couldn’t even punch him satisfactorily. Even as his right fist tried to circumvent John Lennon, the man grabbed him round the knee and toppled him backwards onto the wooden floor, the air jerking out of his lungs in a painful jolt.
This is going badly wrong, thought Tom.
Then Lucia stepped on his arm as she jumped off the bed and tried to grab the man round the neck. ‘Get out of my house!’
The intruder lashed out at her and she crashed against something with a squeal of pain. The man had his knee in Tom’s stomach, a surprisingly effective anchor. It left his hands free to shove Lucia away again as she came back for more. This time he twisted her arm first and she screamed, which gave Tom the impetus to buck the man off him.
