Vivien sank into a chair at the Formica kitchen table and rested her forehead in her hands.
No car. No transportation. And no Uber here in town.
Someone was trying to scare her away from the theater. Threatening her.
She’d been an asshole to Jake, who wasn’t as much of a dickwad as she’d been telling herself he was for a decade and a half.
And…something very strange had happened at the theater with the eerie shadow that glided across the stage and the floor of the pit. Very strange, very creepy…very unsettling.
The oven beeped suddenly, startling her so much that she squeaked a loud gasp. Vivien swore at herself for being an idiot as she rose to put in the pizza.
Then she opened up her tablet and began to scroll through the messages she hadn’t gotten to earlier today, and tried not to think about all of the other icky things.
She lost track of time dealing with her clients—but at least things were progressing. She had just closed two influencer deals for clients who’d be posting videos or pictures on social media (which Vivien would help design and produce), and that would bring in a commission of a couple thousand dollars over the next two months.
And she was still waiting to hear whether GetBack Togs was going to accept an even more lucrative proposal for Louise London. Vivien was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t even realize how much time had passed until she smelled something unpleasant… Something was burning—the pizza!
Crap!She bolted from the table so fast she knocked over her chair just as the smoke detector went off, shrilling horribly in the silence.
Black smoke leaked from the decades-old oven, and when she opened it, more smoke billowed out, making the screaming alarm even more insistent.
The inexpensive, soft frozen pizza had folded, somehow sliding between the wires of the rack, cheese melting (and burning) everywhere, tomato sauce sizzling on the bottom, and pepperoni charred to black.
So much for her dinner.
* * *
A loud poundingjolted Vivien out of a low-level sleep. It took her a few bleary seconds to realize someone was knocking on the front door—Helga—and that it was very light outside. She stumbled out of bed, staggering from the bedroom as she pushed the hair from her eyes. “I’m coming. I’mcoming.”
She flung open the door, and it was Jake, not Helga, who stood there—and she was suddenly awake enough to feel the weight of his attention as it swept over her from tousled head to bare toes…then back up and down once more.
“Oh, hi,” she said, resisting the desire to hide behind the door. After all, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before—although things were a little curvier now than they’d been when she was twenty, and she no longer had a ridiculously concave belly that displayed her hipbones. “Sorry, I overslept. Uh, I was expecting Helga…why are you here?”
It took Jake a full ten seconds to respond—which didn’t sound like very long, but was an eternity when you were standing in the doorway in a barely-covering-your-bare-ass nightgown of paper-thin blue fabric—and when he did, he sounded like he’d swallowed sandpaper. “Uh…Helga’s feeling a little under the weather, so she asked me to pick you up.”
This statement prompted a multitude of questions and more than a twinge of something that might have been jealousy—or at least a low-key niggle of something like that.
“Oh” was all she said.
“Uh, can I come in? I’m guessing you’re going to want to, uh, put something else on.” Still with the gravelly voice. “Before we go to the theater. She’s going to meet us there, I think.”
“The theater? Oh, right,” Vivien said, stepping away from the door. “Sure. Come in. Um…don’t mind the mess. I’m still unpacking, as you can see. I really need some coff— Oh.Wow.” She teared up a little when he handed her a to-go cup of something that definitely smelled like coffee. “Thank you, Jake,” she said with great emotion.
“Still black and three sugars, I hope.” He closed the door behind him.
“God, yes, thank you.” She took a gulp of the coffee and felt more alert almost immediately, but was aware that the caffeine and sugar were going to wreak havoc on her totally empty, painfully gnawing stomach. She wondered what the chances were of getting Jake to stop somewhere for her to grab a breakfast sandwich or something.
It didn’t take her more than fifteen minutes to brush her teeth, take a super-quick shower, and anchor her hair in a loose knot at the top of her head. She dressed in a loose tank top, casual shorts, and practical shoes, since she’d be doing manual labor at the theater. When she opened the bedroom door, she thought she smelled toast and hurried to the kitchen.
“Oh, man, Jake…you have no idea how hungry I am and how good that smells.”
“Well, considering the mess in the garbage and the smell of burned something lingering in the air, I was able to put two and two together that you didn’t get much to eat last night. Helga warned me your cupboards were bare, and since you don’t have a car…” He spread his hands as if to sayobviously. “I brought some bread for you and thought I’d make use of it.”
The toast—from the sun-dried tomato sourdough—tasted like ambrosia, and she unashamedly ate four pieces with butter, trying not to moan too loudly at the deliciousness.
“So good,” she said, wiping up the crumbs and putting the plate and knife in the sink. “Thank you again.”
“I guess you’re ready to go now,” Jake said.
