The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

It was still there when he entered the quiet of the condo. When he scanned the place for a sign of Flick and got annoyed when there wasn’t one. Today, she picked today to live inside the walls of her bedroom. He needed a necklace or a scarf or fucking hair tie where it shouldn’t be because then he’d have something to direct his anger at.

He unlocked the balcony door. Unlocked the fucking thing, because goddamn Spider-Man was going to come and take his indestructible fucking coffee table that’d cost a shit load to buy and have installed. He looked at the view he’d also paid a fortune for and it was a haze. Had to get rid of the clang in his head.

One beer didn’t help. Two took the edge off. Bowie, the Stones, Queen, Roy. Not even Springsteen did it for him. Still the red jazz. He needed Flick’s angry playlist, unfamiliar and outside of his routine, artists he’d only vaguely heard of, songs he’d never felt till that night.

When she got home he’d ask her to play it. Maybe she’d teach him how to move like she did. He couldn’t dance for shit, avoided it, did that side-to-side sway thing that looked like he was moving when he couldn’t.

Three beers. His phone filled up with messages. He didn’t respond to any of them. He should’ve gone for a run. Flick didn’t come home. It’s not like he’d made a plan to cook for her. She could be anywhere. She could be with someone. She didn’t need Tinder to hook up.

He stripped out of his work gear and took a shower and she still wasn’t home. Had to eat, so he started pounding the chicken, seasoning it with salt and pepper. Had another beer.

He didn’t hear her come in, too stuck in his head. She turned Bruce down and said, “Hi, what are you cooking?”

Chicken parmigiana and a hangover. “You’re late.”

“Yeah, I was going to catch up with a friend, but at the last minute he had to work.”

“He had to work?” He. He. She was going out with a he.

“Pete’s an anesthetist, got called in.”

“A friend?”

“Strange as it may seem, I do have friends. What’s the deal here? You’re drinking.”

“It’s Friday night. I don’t need your permission.” He gestured to the refrigerator. “You want one?”

She stepped around the counter and got herself a beer. “Two kinds of cheese?”

“You don’t have to pretend to be interested, I’ll feed you.”

“Tom?” He’d kept his back to her since she came in, moving things around the kitchen, washing his hands, checking on the vegetables. “Tom.” Her hand on his back. “What happened?”

“Bad day at work.”

That hand stole around his chest and Flick hugged him from behind. “How bad?”

It stopped. The jangle in his head, the color leached to pink, to apricot, and cleared like pollution burned off by the sun.

“You don’t have to tell me, but I’m here if you want to talk.”

“I’m in a crappy mood, Flick.” And he’d reached the analytic stage. His relationship with Rendel had to change. If it didn’t he was letting them take advantage of him, hold him on a string.

“And you thought Springsteen?”

She rubbed her hand over his ribs; he had no urge to make her quit. “I don’t know what I thought.” About Springsteen, about trusting Harry, fronting the office on Monday, about what this meant for his career and what to do next.

“Food helps with alcohol consumption.” She released him and stepped back.

“I thought you would’ve eaten already.”

He’d been waiting for her. Ridiculous. He should’ve made a formal appointment if he wanted to eat with her, but then it would be like a date and she’d be in his face and he’d pretend to be pissed off by that, but that’s the last thing he’d be.

Flick could make him be unlike himself, make him want to break patterns and change routines. That should make him twitch, it did, it did, but he didn’t hate it, and what was the point?

“We’re not fucking again,” he said.

“How many beers have you had?”