He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m going to stay, and I’d like to be your man for a while. I’ve got some money stashed away, and I was thinking about setting up a recording studio. I can’t write or sing, but I think I’m a good listener. At the very least, let me help you.”
Arwen stepped into his embrace. “I think I need help,” she murmured against the fabric of his T-shirt, which smelled like smoke and laundry detergent. “’Cause I lost my job today.”
He pushed her back a little and looked her in the eye. His face was a picture of concern, and Arwen’s heart opened up completely. She could love this man.
“How did that happen?” he asked.
She cuddled up against him again. “It’s a long story. How about you make me another margarita and I’ll tell you all the details?”
“Sounds like a good first step. I promise to listen diligently.”
Courtney’s face looked tear-swollen in the mirror, and no amount of concealer was going to hide the fact that she’d cried herself to sleep. She considered her options.
Tuesday was her day off. She could crawl back into bed, where she would probably end up crying some more. Or she could pull herself up and get on with her life. She’d fallen for Matt Lyndon, and it hadn’t worked out. This was a surprise? She stared at herself. “You knew the risks when you crossed the hall and knocked on his door,” she said to herself in a watery voice.
Shit. It was going to take a long time to get over him. But loafing around the apartment having crying jags wouldn’t roll back time or change her stupidity.
She should get up and get out. Take care of her errands. But before she hit the grocery store and the dry cleaner, she needed to apologize to Leslie and Sid.
So she took a long shower and tried to wash away Matt Lyndon. It didn’t work, but at least it woke her up.
An hour later, she pulled into the Dogwood Estates parking lot determined to make it through her day with calm and grace. But the sight before her was so depressing. Dogwood Estates looked almost abandoned. The windows on half of the units had been boarded up, the weeds hadn’t been mowed in weeks, and a group of young men were loading boxes into a U-Haul trailer parked way on the other side of where Sid and Leslie lived. People were moving out.
A ten-pound weight dropped onto her chest. In a few days, it would be Leslie and Sid packing up a U-Haul and moving away, maybe as far away as Arizona. Courtney would probably never see them again. She wiped an errant tear that dribbled down her cheek. She needed to stop crying. Now. Leslie and Sid didn’t need her tears.
She held this thought in her mind as she knocked on Sid’s door. Leslie answered, looking like an aging Rosie the Riveter in a chambray shirt knotted on one side and a cute red bandanna around her head.
“Hi,” Courtney said, trying in vain to keep her lips from trembling.
“Oh, honey, what’s the matter? What’s happened?” Leslie grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into a motherly hug that smelled exactly like Estée Lauder. All of Courtney’s resolutions melted like a lump of sugar in a cup of hot tea.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed against Leslie’s shoulder.
“About what?” Leslie dragged her across the threshold and shut the door.
“About making you think I was angry, you know…about…about you and Sid. I’m not angry. I’m just…sad…sad…’cause you’re moving away,” she wailed.
“Hush, now.” Leslie patted her back and made soft cooing sounds as Courtney fell apart for the second or third time in as many days. What the hell was wrong with her? She couldn’t seem to stop crying.
“What’s the matter?” Sid asked.
Courtney finally raised her head to find Sid standing at the end of the short entrance foyer looking confused and adorable in his madras shorts and Rolling Stones tongue-and-lips logo T-shirt.
“I came to apologize.” Courtney sniffed. “About yesterday. I didn’t leave the protest because I was angry with you guys.”
Sid dug into the pocket of his shorts and handed her a handkerchief. “Here, honey. Dry your eyes. We didn’t think you were angry with us.”
“But we were worried about you,” Leslie said. “That’s why we sent Matt to find you.”
“But he said—”
“Well…” Sid drew out the word. “We might have led him to think that.”
“Why?”
“Can I get you some ice tea? A piece of pound cake?” Leslie asked like the perfect hostess.
Courtney shook her head. “What are you two up to?”
Sid turned away and sank into his recliner. “Sit down, sweetie.”
Courtney sat down on the couch, and Leslie sat beside her, reaching out to snag her hand. “When Matt kissed Arwen yesterday, Sid and I both saw how you reacted, and it—”
“Oh, for crissake,” Sid interrupted. “Arwen’s been shacking up with that Rory character over in apartment 5B. I can’t imagine what she sees in that guy. He’s—”
“Rory Ahearn lives here?”
Leslie and Sid nodded.
“So you see, dear,” Leslie said, “we knew Arwen and Matt were just work colleagues. That kiss was as innocent as can be. But you reacted like a woman in love.”
Courtney’s emotions took another wild flight, and she pressed Sid’s handkerchief to her eyes. “I’m such an idiot.”
Leslie put her arm around Courtney’s shoulder and hugged her close. It felt so nice to have someone care. Suddenly she understood why Sid had fallen for Leslie. She had a big heart, and she needed to take care of people. Now that Courtney had found her, she didn’t want Leslie to move away. Leslie had the capacity to become a stand-in for the mother Courtney had missed all her life.
“You two had
