Okay, well, whatever.
“I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll set something up.”
“Très bien,” she murmured.
“All right, honey, I have to go finish getting ready.”
“Have a wonderful time, Kia.”
“I will, Celeste. We’ll speak soon.”
“Of course, adieu, ma belle.”
Adieu, ma belle.
Freaking cool.
“’Bye, Celeste.”
She rang off. I flipped the phone shut, slipped it on the table and looked to Sam just as Luci walked out with another pot of coffee.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
Luci poured.
I answered.
“That’s my Lake Como bud, Celeste. She just told me she had a daughter with blonde hair and green eyes named Clémence who died when she was twelve of leukemia. Since we met, she’s been super awesome. This is because she’s super awesome but also because, I just learned, I remind her of her daughter. I kind of lost it when she told me that so, uh…” my eyes slid from a solid and staring at me Sam to a frozen and staring at me Luci, “sorry for the drama.”
“Jesus, baby,” Sam whispered.
I bit my lip.
“That’s very sad,” Luci whispered.
I nodded.
Sam kept staring at me.
“I’m okay now,” I assured him.
He kept staring at me.
“Sam, I’m okay,” I whispered.
His eyes moved from me to Luci then back to me before they slid to the lake. He appeared to be thinking but he also appeared not to wish to share what he was thinking and I knew this not because I’d absorbed knowledge of all things Sam by sleeping in his arms but because he didn’t share what he was thinking.
I left it at that and took a sip of my coffee in preparation for going back upstairs and finishing getting ready.
I only got the sip in before Luci put Sam’s coffee cup in front of him and announced, “I’ll go get my laptop so you can check your e-mail.”
Then off she went, gliding gracefully through the doors to the kitchen before I could make a peep.
When my eyes moved from where Luciana disappeared, they went through Sam on the way back, a Sam who was putting his coffee cup down and turning to me.
And when he did, he said quietly, “Celeste, your Lake Como bud, can I take from that you met her here?”
I nodded.
“And she just shared about her kid?”
I nodded again.
“Just like that?”
I thought about it. Then I said, “Well, kind of, I mean, we got close very quickly so it hasn’t been long but, I don’t know, I feel a connection with her, a connection she’s now explained so it isn’t weird. I mean, we’ve shared. Nothing that personal but, my guess is, it would get that personal eventually. It was just sooner rather than later.”
“Luci likes you,” he informed me and I smiled.
“I can tell.”
“No, baby, Luci likes you.”
That was when I blinked because he was telling me something, I just didn’t know what.
Sam carried on.
“I told you she was up in my business, what I didn’t tell you was, not only is she all over my ass to hook up and get down to the business of makin’ babies, she’s all over my ass because she pretty much hates every woman I’ve been with that she’s met. She isn’t here often. That party last night is something she does when she comes home so she can see all her friends. She’s still got the house she lived in with Gordo, a house that’s close to mine and she spends most of her time there. So, when I say she’s in my business, I might not have mentioned she’s got opportunity.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Why didn’t she like your other, uh… women?” I asked.
“I didn’t say she didn’t like them, honey, I said she hated them, as in, hated their f**kin’ guts.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, drawing it out. “So, why?”
“How would I know? Obviously, I liked ‘em.”
Well. Obviously.
“Until I stopped liking them,” he finished.
Well, obviously about that too.
I made no reply.
“But, gotta admit,” he muttered distractedly, his eyes sliding to the lake, his hand going to his coffee cup, “none of them were like you.”
I was curious to know what that meant even though I was kind of freaking out about this conversation but I didn’t get the opportunity to figure out how to shape my question so as not to sound overly nosy, fishing for compliments or gossiping cattily because that was when Luci returned.
“Here we are!” she called, gliding forward carrying an open laptop which she rounded Sam with, then shoved my dirty dishes aside with one hand and plonked it on the table in front of me. “All ready. I have wi-fi or whatever; Sam set it up for me the other day so you’re good out here.”
Sam could set up wi-fi. This meant he was trained to kill, trained to read people and was good with computers.
Interesting, useful (ish) and scary.
I leaned forward but didn’t take my heels from my seat as I slid my finger on the mousepad, clicked and plucked out the web address one-handed and called up my webmail then Paula’s e-mail which had the subject line Woot! Woot! Perfect!
I clicked the link and stopped breathing.
It was.
Perfect.
It was one of The Dorchester’s three-story, two bedroom units. This meant it had a dining room rather than dining area. This also meant that it had a study or family room area that was kind of a balcony that opened up over the first floor. This meant it wasn’t awesome, it was awesome.
Therefore, looking at it, I whispered, “Awesome.”
“Let’s see!” Luci cried then suddenly the laptop was twisted away from me and toward her and Sam and, instantly, I felt panic.
This was because The Dorchester was cool and that particular unit was awesome.
What it was not was a swanky, exclusive hotel. It was also not what an ex-pro-football player who had numerous endorsement contracts could afford. Nor was it an Italian villa which had an extended garage that housed five trashy but mind-bogglingly expensive automobiles.
Shit.
“Uh… I, uh…” I stammered then blurted, “It’s in Indiana.”
Sam’s eyes went from the laptop to me and Luci, who was standing beside him and bent to look, twisted to me.
Neither of them spoke.
They thought it was rinky-dink.
I looked to Luci.
“Uh, we don’t have villas in Indiana, er, I don’t think or, at least, I’ve never seen one.”