I turned to see Ham walk out wearing his clothes from last night.

That didn’t sting. It burned.

But I battled the burn, telling myself I had to move on. We were roommates. He wanted nothing more. Even if he did, he couldn’t give me what I wanted. He wasn’t that man, not for me, not for anybody. He’d told me that himself. I had to find a way to unhook myself from a man who wanted nothing hanging on him. Not a house. Not furniture. Not a steady job. Not a woman. Not anything.

I had to find my way clear. Find a different happy that didn’t include him at the same time it did.

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey,” I replied.

Ham moved to the railing and leaned a hip on it, crossing his arms on his chest, all this while I watched.

“I was a dick yesterday,” he announced. “Was in a shit mood. Don’t know why but took it out on you. That was uncool. It won’t happen again. You’re right. This is your place, do what you want. I shouldn’t have said shit. It was a nasty thing to do, totally out of line, and you don’t need that crap.”

“You’re right. It was a nasty thing to do but it’s over. You’re bein’ cool about it now but I’d prefer it if we never discussed it again,” I said.

“I can do that.”

I nodded, put the coffee cup to my lips and my eyes to the mountains.

“Babe, just sayin’, I was a dick about your friends last night, too,” he stated and I looked back at him. “That said, cookie, be good you had a word with them and let them know what this is so they don’t give me anymore shit. I get where they’re comin’ from. I dig that you got that. Good friends are hard to beat. But just like you don’t need the crap I gave you yesterday, I don’t need that crap.”

“I can do that,” I told him.

“Thanks, darlin’,” he replied.

I looked back at the mountains.

“Zara,” he called.

“What?” I answered, eyes still glued to the mountains.

He said nothing.

I looked to him.

“What?” I repeated.

His head turned to the mountains and he muttered, “Nothin’, darlin’.”

I looked back to the mountains and took a sip of joe.

“More of that?” Ham asked.

“Plenty,” I answered.

“Need a refill?” he asked.

“I’m good,” I lied, but not about the coffee.

“Right, baby,” he murmured and I heard the door open and shut.

I kept my eyes to the mountains and pretended not to feel the wet gliding down my cheeks.

Chapter Seven

Roomies

Two weeks, three days later…


It was my day off and I was going to use it to do something I hadn’t been able to do in a long time.

I was going shopping. I was going to blow money (or, at least, a little bit of it) on whatever struck my fancy. Then I was going to a shoot-’em-up movie.

I was wandering down the hall toward the living room and my ultimate destination, the front door, as I was thinking distractedly that Ham also had the day off. I was also thinking that, in all the time Ham and I had been back to working together, we always but always had the same days off. And I was further thinking this was weird, seeing as this was his doing since he wrote the schedule.

And last, I was thinking not so distractedly that, since it was his day off, I should ask if he wanted to go with me.

I’d shopped with Ham in the past. He didn’t mind it. I couldn’t say he was overwhelmed with joy to do it, but he didn’t bitch about it like other guys. That was, as long as you didn’t drag him around from store to store for hours.

But he liked movies.

I knew I should ask him. Things had been weird since our blow up about my vibrator usage weeks ago.

We weren’t the same.

This was mostly my doing. I was finding ways to live my life and have fun. I was reconnecting with friends, meeting for coffee, lunch, or dinner before I’d have to go to work. I went to the library in Carnal, met the famously-still-alive-after-being-buried-alive Faye Goodknight and got my library card so I could check out books and rediscover my passion for reading, something I did in my room a lot but more often did at the café with a latte. And it was near on harvest festival time and I was looking forward to going, with money, so I could eat the amazing food and maybe splurge on something cool from one of the vendors.

I was also kind of avoiding Ham.

If he noticed it, he didn’t show it. He was back to mellow, grinning easy, quick to tease or joke in the minimal time I spent in the common areas of the condo and in the not minimal time we spent together at work.

Roomies. For Ham, easy.

Truth be told, Nina was right. It was cool to get back to doing things I liked to do and I was having fun. It felt good not to wallow in what was done and gone and wasn’t much fun and find things to look forward to. I’d waited to have that back for a while and it was more than nice having it.

But the invisible chasm that separated me from my roomie was still there. I felt it even if he didn’t and I didn’t like it.

He was my friend who did me a solid. He was a guy with, as he put it, “basic needs” so he was going to see to those and I needed to get over it because it was none of my business. And he’d been a dick but he’d explained and kind of apologized, meeting the issue head on and guiding us around it.

I needed to sort my shit out.

At least I’d sorted out Maybelle, Wanda, Arlene, and Cotton (I hoped). I’d spent some time with each of them over the past few weeks and when we’d sat down, I’d told them in no uncertain terms to back off. I also told them my new lease on life and that I need them to accept the fact that I was finding my way off the dark path and into the light.

And last, I’d been brutally honest about the fact that I was working through being hung up on Ham, but it was mine to do, I was determined to do it, and I didn’t need their help. I also shared that it was no help, them getting in the face of a guy I was tight with who had my back. If they didn’t trust him, they should trust me so they needed to back off.

Wanda seemed contrite. Maybelle was noncommittal but I thought I got through to her. Arlene stated, “I’ll do what I do,” but she’d been a frequent visitor to The Dog and she hadn’t been in Ham’s or my business once since we had our chat.

Cotton said nothing except, “Find a day. I need an assistant. Feelin’ the urge comin’ on to take me some pictures. And you’re luggin’ my stuff.”

I wasn’t sure if that was Cotton’s way of giving me what I wanted without telling me he was going to give me what I wanted or vice versa. I just knew he didn’t come back to The Dog.

I was sure I was looking forward to “luggin’ his stuff” while he worked. He’d never asked me to do that. He was famous, his photos more so because they were the freaking bomb, and there were likely not many people who had the privilege of working with him.

So all that was good… I hoped.

I stopped nearly to the mouth of the hall that led into the living room when I heard Ham’s voice talking quiet.

And jagged.

I sucked in a silent breath.

“Yeah, darlin’, dyin’ down. That’s good, Feb.”

Feb.

February Owens. The woman he cared about who was the obsession of an ax murderer.

After the finale to that grisly debacle, it was impossible to miss the aftermath news reports about it, but even so, I didn’t try.

I was curious. Curious about February Owens.

Eventually, my curiosity was assuaged. They showed pictures of her and her boyfriend, and she was gorgeous. Older than me, probably closer to Ham’s age. But she looked a little like me. Blonde hair. Brown eyes. Her man, who apparently had been her man way back in the day and they’d hooked up again, was phenomenal. Definitely on par in hotness to Ham, if leaner and not quite as tall.

“No, probably won’t go away. But it will come further between,” Ham went on and I suspected he was talking about the situation with Dennis Lowe, the resulting media onslaught and continued morbid fascination of the public when stuff like that happened.

“No, nothin’ this way. I’m a footnote, babe. And way good with that,” Ham told her.

I started to slink back when he continued.

“You good? Happy?”

At that, I stopped. Mostly because he sounded like he wanted that for her even if her being that way meant she was that way with another guy.

Which was, apparently, Ham’s way.

“Good, beautiful,” he whispered.

He wasn’t saying something was beautiful.

He was calling February Owens “beautiful.”

And that hurt. A lot.

Why did that hurt so much?

She was “beautiful.” February Owens, who had to be one of the women he had when he also had me, was “beautiful.”

I was “cookie.”

She was closer to his age and she was inarguably beautiful. I wasn’t jailbait but I was a lot younger than him so I got “cookie.”

That had to be why it hurt so much.

What hurt more was I’d always loved him calling me cookie. No one had ever given me a nickname. Not even my sister, Xenia. We were tight and she messed around with me all the time, definitely the kind of person to give me a nickname. And I thought “cookie” was cute, it was sweet and it was mine.

“Right, yeah, got the day off,” Ham carried on. “No clue. Relax, do nothin’…”

His voice trailed off as I finally moved back to my room. Once there, I stayed there, gave it time, and as I did, I blanked my mind.

I knew about the other women, and anyway, that was then. This was now. She had a man and Ham was just my roommate.