“Where is he? What did he do? Son of a bitch.”
“Who?” Malory braced herself for Moes leap of love but wasnt prepared to have Flynn lift her off her feet. “What?”
“You were screaming.”
“Oh. Okay, Moe, down you go. Flynn, put me down. Im fine, Im perfectly fine.” Other than the fact that she was flushed with embarrassment and trying not to giggle. “I thought I was alone.”
Reaction set in and made Flynn short of breath. He dropped Malory back on her feet with a little thump as his arms started to tremble. “You stand in the kitchen and scream when you think youre alone?”
“Well, not usually. But look! Just look.” She did a fast-time step, followed by a neat little pirouette.
Clueless, Flynn tried again. “Youve realized you want to fulfill a childhood dream and become a dancing star of stage and screen?”
“No!” With a laugh, she whirled Flynn into a circle that had Moe leaping again. “Look. We have a floor. A wonderful, beautiful hardwood floor.”
She executed what Flynn thought might be some sort of clog dance. “Sounds like wood, all right.”
“No more ugly linoleum for us. And look at this!” She whirled away from him and embraced the glossy new side-by-side refrigerator with the passion of a woman greeting a lover returning from the war. “Isnt it wonderful? And see how it matches this?”
While Flynn watched, she spun to the range. “Its so beautiful.” She crooned it now. “So shiny and clean. And everything works. I tried all the buttons and dials, and it works! I actually cant wait to cook something. I walked in, saw all this, and I just had to scream. They put in the floor, Flynn, and brought in the appliances. See the new microwave?”
“Very sexy.”
“It is.” Whirling into a dance again, she tried out arhumba . “And we have pretty new cabinets with pretty glass fronts. Im going to put pretty dishes in them, and sparkly glasses. Its a kitchen. An actual kitchen.”
He was getting it now, and the charge of watching her revel. Shed switched from therhumba to… he wasnt sure what. But she looked really cute. “What was it before?”
“There is no name for what it was before. Im so happy. Im so grateful. Youre the most wonderful man in the world.” She caught his face in her hands and kissed him. “And Im a terrible person.”
“Why? Not the „Im wonderful part, because, hey. But why are you a terrible person?”
“Because I wouldnt move in with you before you did this. I made the kitchen a kind of exchange. Remodel the kitchen and Ill live with you. It was selfish. It worked,” she added, raining kisses over his face. “But it was selfish. Youre doing this for me. I know I said I wouldnt move in until it was finished, and I even madesnarky comments about the lamps up in the bedroom.”
“Something about not being fit to light a cave inhabited by bats and blind spiders.”
“Yes, that was one of them. Anyway, forgive me?”
“Okay.”
“I know its not quite finished. Theres still the counters and the backsplash and, oh, a few more things, but I dont want to wait anymore. Ill move in tomorrow, and we can start, officially, living together.”
“I dont want to live together.”
Her face went blank.
“What?”
“Sorry, Mal.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I dont want to live together.”
“But… but you asked me to move in with you weeks ago. Youve asked me half a dozen times.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I changed my mind.”
“You—you changed your mind?”
“Thats right.” Casually, he opened the new refrigerator. “Wow. Look at all this room. And it is shiny.”
She couldnt do anything but stare at him. Her stomach had dropped to her feet, and those feet no longer felt like dancing. “I dont understand. I dont understand how you could just change your mind about something like this, from one minute to the next.”