“And some berries for the bird,” Heathcliff yelled after me.
“That’s an extra quid!” I called back as I slammed the bookshop door behind me.
“Croooooak!”
* * *
As I pushed open the heavy door twenty minutes later, splattered with rain and laden down with a tower of Indian food, a bottle of white wine, and a punnet of imported blueberries, a foul smell hit my nostrils, like death and moldy socks and stinky cheese all rolled into one.
“Did the cat bring us a surprise?” I asked as I slid the food down on Heathcliff’s desk and rolled over a stool to join him. The odor burned my nostrils so bad my eyes watered.
Heathcliff grunted and yanked the lid off a rogan josh. “This reeks of chili and foreign spices.”
“Of course it does, it’s curry. How can you smell anything over that reek? Are you sure there’s not a pile of rotting fish in the back of that desk drawer?”
“It doesn’t smell so terrible.”
“Huh. I guess your olfactory senses have been blunted by years of living in bachelor squalor, and that’s why you don’t want me to go upstairs.” I spread takeout containers across the desk. “Go on then, grab some utensils and dive in. If that rogan josh is too spicy, I’ve got us butter chicken and a couple of samosas and even a bottle of cheap plonk to celebrate your genius decision to hire me and the fact that I’m going to turn this place around—Heathcliff, that smell isfoul. We can’t keep letting that bird defecate in here, it’s giving this bookshop a really bad—” I stopped short as my eyes followed my nose to the source of the smell. In the wingback chair under the window sat a disheveled gentleman wearing jeans that were more holes than fabric. He wore a trench coat stained with streaks of filth, and his wild hair looked like it hadn’t ever seen a comb or a shower. He had a book open in his lap and one hand thrust into the front of his jacket. At first I thought he was being filthy, but his hand was over his breast. Still, weird.
I leaned over the desk, where Heathcliff had his nose in a book, his heavy boots crossed on top of his keyboard while the computer beeped in protest. I waved my hand under his face, but he didn’t look up at me.
“Um, Heathcliff,” I whispered. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a hobo reading in the corner.”
“Of course I noticed.” Heathcliff tossed down the book and lifted the lid on a container, frowning at its contents. “Did you get any onion bhaji?”
“If you hate e-commerce stores and people with mobile phones, surely you have a thing about smelly hobos stinking out the shop?”
Heathcliff glanced over at the homeless man, who didn’t seem to have noticed my arrival. “Earl doesn’t have a home. He sleeps on a park bench. It’s cold and wet outside and he wants to read books, and the best thing is… he does not own an ereader.”
My chest panged at his kindness. Living in New York had hardened me against homeless people, but Heathcliff was right. There was no one else in here and it was miserable outside. “You’re sweet, for a grumpy bastard.”
Heathcliff grunted as he tore off a piece of naan and soaked it in rogan josh. “Maybe he and I have common interests.”
“Why don’t you let him crash on your sofa upstairs, then?”
“Are you making a joke? Hesmells. I’m not having him near my stuff.” Heathcliff pulled two wine glasses from the second drawer in his desk and set them on the table.
“You keep wine glasses in your desk?”
“I work in the book industry. There’s always a reason to drink.” The cork lasted all but a second under his strong fingers. As Heathcliff poured the wine, I let my mind wander, and it went straight to a fantasy of Heathcliff flinging the stacks of books and computer off his desk, throwing me down, and consummating our already combative working relationship with the most intense fuck I’d ever experienced.
I bet Heathcliff uses words like consummating, which is totally okay if he can give multiple orgasms…
Damn, what’s wrong with me? He may be hot, but he’s my boss. And he’s also a dick.
A huge dick.
I bet he has a huuuuuge dick…
Oh Aphrodite, save me.
I stared hard at my curry, hoping Heathcliff would attribute my red face to the high levels of chili.
“If that girl wasn’t your friend, who is she?” Heathcliff muttered between bites of naan.
“Just a girl I knew,” I said into my lunch. “I suppose she was my friend once.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
