But the ring? That’s easy.
I never want it to leave Effie’s finger.
* * *
It has been five thousand years since we last stood in Effie’s hotel suite. This morning feels like it happened to a whole other Guy Coltrane, and I’m so jarred by walking back into the suite that I sag against the wall by the doorway.
It’s carnage. So much worse than I remembered.
There are those feathers everywhere, and the drapes hanging off the curtain pole. The overturned chair and the abandoned suitcase. Strewn pieces of clothing and lopsided lamps and an accusing waxy moon, watching us through the huge glass windows.
“The room deposit…” Effie stares around, her expression bleak. “We’re not getting that back, are we? Are you gonna dock it from my pay, boss man?”
I rub my temples. My headache is back. “No.”
Obviously I am not going to do that. I’m not going tochargemy assistant for the results of a night that was clearly not her fault, and that I had equal part in. And I like to think that I’ve always been fair with Effie, albeit strict at times, but the fact that she thinks I might do such a shitty thing is making my head spin.
“Guy? Do you want to lie down?”
“No.”
Effie huffs and grumbles something under her breath. I can’t hear the words, but the tone is suspiciously like her earlier impression of me.
Grump grump grump. That’s my WIFE.
Not for much longer.
Oh, fuck. Maybe I will vomit after all.
“The dress must be around here somewhere.” Effie pokes around the edge of the bed, rooting through the nest of sheets she apparently slept in on the floor. Another blow to my self respect. “It’s not like I wandered around the hotel naked.”
“We hope.”
Effie snorts. “We hope.”
I should get over there and help look, should do something other than lean against the wall and stare, but Effie’s finally taken the baseball cap off and her wild hair is free again, cascading over her shoulders and down her back. Meanwhile her blue dress shifts against her body as she moves, leaning over to slide her hand under the mattress, and I know how that body feels now. I have first hand knowledge of how she’s built. How she fits to my palm. She’s perfect.
“This is just like home.” My assistant shoots me a sly grin, wandering away to check behind the curtains. “You standing there and looking pretty while I do all the work.”
Ha.
“That’s not my recollection of our working life.”
Effie abandons the curtains and picks up the fallen chair. She sets it upright, wiping a stray cluster of feathers from the seat. “Yeah, I bet it’s not. Keep kidding yourself, Mr Coltrane.”
The feathers drift slowly to the carpet at her feet. Swirling and snowy white.
My heart thumps harder against my ribs.
Oh god. I remember.
I remember Effie stretched out on her stomach on the bed, dressed only in her yellow lace panties. The smooth olive skin of her back, her delicate shoulder blades shifting. I remember her muffling her moans in a pillow as I—as I—
“Guy?” Her voice comes to me from far away. “What’s going on? Are you having a stroke?”
I left her panties on. I’m sure of that. I even remember my exact addled reasoning, my argument with her about it. She wanted to take them off, for us to go all the way, and I wanted…
I wanted her to be sure.