Fen Sarafian:
This is all new to me, too
Not sure if that helps
Jane Marlow:
It does. Because I have so much in my glitchy head
Fen Sarafian:
I like your glitchy head
And all the rest of you too
Jane Marlow:
I wish I could hear your voice
Fen Sarafian:
SAME
Can you talk? I’m absolutely alone
Jane Marlow:
I’m in domestic quarters
Walls are paper thin
Fen Sarafian:
Outside? Don’t you need to walk the dog?
I think you should
Jane Marlow:
Give me five minutes to get Frida’s harness on
I’ll call you
Fen Sarafian:
Call sooner. I’m dying
Velvet was still feeling bad the next afternoon, and Fen was working away from the store, so he suggested picking me up so that we could spend the last part of the day together on a mysterious outing that involved “sun and fresh air.”
It didn’t take much convincing. I was a nervous wreck, wanting to see him again after our late-night phone call… knowing it was wrong. Those feelings created a sharp anxiety in the center of my solar plexus. I knew it wasn’t rational, but I had to be near him soon, or it felt as if that sharpness was going to break me apart.
Fen sounded much less frazzled than I felt. Cool and breezy behind dark shades that covered his hawk eyes, so it was hard to read his emotions. Or maybe mine were so dangerously fragilethat I was having trouble focusing on anything else. But he didn’t act like he’d spent the last twenty-four hours replaying our kiss in his mind until life had no meaning.
Not that I’d done that.
He was out of the record store for the day because he’d been finishing up the Tybalt collection assessment. It was worth a cool $2,700, thanks to a couple of Elvis records and one or two other rarities, but the widow wasn’t happy. She’d been hoping for much more.
“There was shouting,” he told me from the driver’s seat of the Jeep as we sped away from the lodge. He glanced in the rearview mirror as if someone might catch us. Honestly, I was afraid of that too. I reminded him about the lodge security cameras, but he pointed out that to anyone watching, we were still just “in-laws” hanging out.
