“Sweetheart,” Noc answered.
“I think we’ve found it,” I whispered, having removed myself from Josette, the agent, and Valentine, who had driven us to the showing.
“It’s good?” he asked.
“It’s perfect, darling. The courtyard. The ceiling roses. A magic room for me. And many bedrooms.”
He was silent a second before he asked, “How you feelin’ like fillin’ those up?”
My voice dropped lower. “You know how.”
“Tell the agent I wanna see it. I got shit on with the job on Saturday so it’ll have to be Sunday.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Josette like it?” he queried.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Valentine with you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she say?”
“She said, ‘it’ll do.’”
There was amusement in his voice when he replied, “So she likes it.”
“That’s my read.”
“Right. Good. I’ll look at it Sunday and we’ll discuss your offer.”
“Excellent, darling. Now I’ll let you get back to work.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Valentine dropping you at my place?”
“No, her caretaker is giving Josette and me driving lessons after this. Then he’s dropping me at your place. Josette is making dinner for Glover at Valentine’s. Trying her hand at her skills in the kitchen. Valentine is absenting herself. She hasn’t shared where she’s going.”
“Not a surprise,” he muttered. “I’ll see you when I get home then, yeah?”
“Yes, Noc.”
“Later, babe. Love you.”
“And I you, my darling.”
He rang off and I took the phone from my ear and turned my attention again to the room in which I stood.
Yes.
Perfection.
The room was. The house was.
I was not.
Noc had started his cases and this meant he woke us earlier. It also meant he came home later. And he even took phone calls and worked on his laptop after getting home.
He made it clear he did not mind this. He was enjoying his work, he made that clear too. It was not exhausting, it was invigorating.
I liked that for him. I drank my wine and watched the television or read a book I’d found at his house that was quite interesting and let him do what he enjoyed. And when it was time for me, I let him enjoy me.
Therefore, obviously, with his new job and the satisfaction he got from it, now was not the time to bring up whatever was festering inside him, shadowing his soul.
It was an excellent excuse.
But it was still an excuse.
I knew it.
I just didn’t know how to get past it.
* * * * *
That Sunday, Noc stood in a bedroom upstairs in the home I was considering purchasing.
The room in which I’d made my decision just days before and given him a call.
It was right now where a little girl slept. Pink walls. An elephant motif. Not frilly but still girly. Absolutely adorable.
It was the last room I allowed him to enter.
The courtyard was lovely, elegant, private and serene, mature plants, with a handsome, built-in grilling apparatus I knew Noc would love (and he did).
My magic room would be a sunroom, bright and cheery, seeming outside when it was in.
The master suite, as it was known here, was luxurious with a separate shower and bath, both utterly divine.
And the kitchen was large and stylish, but welcoming, making Noc’s assertion that it was the heart of the house very true.
I liked all those things.
But I’d decided this house was the one based on this room.
He was staring at a stuffed elephant on the bed.
“Darling?” I called.
His eyes came directly to me.
“I love it,” he stated. “We’re offering.”
We were offering.
He liked his house. I did too.
But this tall, stately, elegant, spacious place was going to be our home.
I felt my throat close.
Amara would sleep there.
Right there.
I knew it just looking at him.
I felt my face get soft and I smiled.
Noc’s face didn’t get soft. The look on his was fierce.
Even so.
He smiled back.
* * * * *
“Frannie.”
“Yes, darling.”
“Sugarlips, I’m home.”
“Yes, darling.”
Silence.
Then a shaking, “Babe.”
“Yes, darling?”
I did not see the hand that came to the apparatus I held in my own.
What I saw on the television screen was the action pausing.
My eyebrows shot together, I twisted my neck to the side, bent it back and glared at Noc, who was smiling down at me hugely.
“I was making record time!” I snapped.
“Babe,” he replied.
“Do you know how many efforts it took to get to that time?” I demanded to know.
“Babe,” he repeated.
“You paused me!” I continued to snap.
“Babe,” he said again, this sounding clogged, likely due to his visible hilarity.
“I’ll never get that run back!” I groused and did it loudly.
“Love you. Think it’s cute as all fuck you’re Franka Drakkar and Franka Drakkar is a woman who’d be so into a fuckin’ video game she wouldn’t even look at her man when he came home from work. But just sayin’, I just got home from work and I want my woman not only to look at me but greet me with a smile and give me a kiss, my preference, with tongues, even if it messes with her record time while it looks like she’s racing a fake race car in a make-believe video version of Monaco.”