“Yeah. It’s nice,” I say, eager to see where I’ll be laying my head for the night.
“Okay, impatient, are we?” she asks, tearing herself away from furniture ogling to go down the other hallway, which has three closed doors in different directions. One turns out to be a bathroom. The next is a laundry room combined with gym equipment. We go to the door at the end. Linden pushes it open, then turns on me and glares. “Well, enjoy sleeping on a desk.” She turns and walks past me into the living room.
I take a look into the room, already knowing what I’ll find—a large partner desk with an Aeron chair for ergonomic posture and a small beige couch. Of course there’s no second bedroom. That would make my life too easy.
When I go back to the living room, she’s standing there with her hands on her hips, furious. “Do I seem like a stupid person? Like someone who’s just easy, who will shack up with you just because the opportunity presents itself?”
I kind of wish she’d settle down because the more irate she gets, the sexier I find her.
Behind us, I hear the doorbell of the casita ring and turn to find Hugo standing in the doorway, looking a little awkward. I don’t know how much of her tirade he heard. From his expression, I’m guessing all of it.
“I’m sorry, I think there was a mistake. I think Mrs. Nichols assumed you were staying together…” His face is the shade of a beet. “Miss Linden, we have an empty casita if you’d like it. I’m really so sorry.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault. We just drove together but it would be great if we could stay separately,” Linden says, walking over and giving Hugo a hug. I wish she didn’t seem so joyful about our separate accommodations. On the plus side, I have to admit she has a way with people. She’ll be an asset this weekend if some of the guests tell her things they might not feel as comfortable telling me.
Hugo picks up Linden’s giant duffel and leads her out the door while I take my much smaller suitcase into the master bedroom. The light scent of Linden’s shampoo lingers in the room and I’m annoyed at the small part of myself that wishes it was her lingering instead.
Get your head in the game.
I’m here to do a job and I should be immensely grateful that we’re not, in fact, sharing a casita. If the five minutes of Linden’s ire was a sample of what lay ahead if we’d been stuck in the same space, I’d dodged a bullet when Hugo corrected the mistake. Looking at my phone, I see that I have a good half hour before the mandatory cocktail and mingle hour and I intend to use that to prepare. There’s no chance I’m risking the opportunity to get close to Ken Nichols’s life and take down every detail. To start with, I take out my laptop and start writing a couple of paragraphs of background color, just based on first impressions of the villa.
But not ten minutes later, there’s a knock at my door. It’s Linden, looking apologetic and a little sheepish. “I… I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I was being a jerk. After you were nice enough to drive all the way here and deal with the traffic, and agree to even have me along, which I know you didn’t want to do, and I want you to know that I get that, and I really am grateful to be working on this story,” she says, getting a little out of breath at the endlessness of her sentence.
I hold up a hand to stop her. “It’s okay. It was a misunderstanding.”
“It’s not that I think you’d be a terrible roommate or anything. I just thought I was being tricked.”
“I am an excellent roommate, actually, though it’s been a while since I’ve had anyone around who could attest to that,” I say.
She leans against the doorframe. “Okay, well, that’s all I came to say.” But she’s lingering. And fidgeting. I also get a better look at what she’s wearing now: a short skirt and some silky-looking top with a lightweight wrap and stiletto heels that make her nearly as tall as I am. Thankfully, she’s left her hair down and it’s now rolling over her shoulders. The woman standing in front of me is a near-total transformation from the jeans-wearing junior reporter I’m used to seeing every day. I could be done in by her hair alone.
“Do you want to come in for a minute? We don’t have to be in the garden for a bit,” I say.
“That’s true. We’ve got a good hour.”
I don’t have to look at a clock to know we have way less than an hour. I’m not starting this weekend off giving Linden the chance to be late to anything. I know Ken well enough to understand that punctuality is important to him. “No. Not an hour. Twenty minutes tops.”
A hint of a devilish smile creeps over her lips. “I’m kidding. I know you hate that I tend to be late.”
“I don’t hate it,” I say. “I just don’t get it.”
“Yeah, time-conscious people don’t. I don’t know. I guess I’m just overly-ambitious about how much I expect to accomplish in the time given. So when I’m late, not only am I not punctual, I also feel unaccomplished.”
“Sounds like an awful way to live.”
“It’s how I’m wired. I’m just telling you so you’ll cut me some slack when I’m late,” she says. She’s still standing in the doorway, not making any moves to come in or leave.
“So… are you coming in? Or not?”
“I’m coming in. And you’re raiding the little bar in the kitchen there and fixing me a drink.” I’m amused by her boldness, but a little worried that if she starts drinking now, I might have to carry her back to her room a few hours later. I must look terrified. “Relax. I’m only having this one drink. I’ll have seltzer water at the cocktail thing and at dinner. I’m not going to embarrass you or myself. I’m here to work.” With that reassurance, she sweeps into my casita, swings the French doors open, and plops herself on the couch facing the ocean.
I’m then left to hustle her up a drink, and as I poke through the contents of the bar in the kitchen, I’m a little dumbstruck by her.
“How did you even know there was a bar in the kitchen?” I ask, finding some highball glasses in one of the cupboards and opening the freezer to see if there’s ice. Of course, there’s ice. There’s everything a person could dream up or presume to want. I start mixing up some gin and tonics.
“I was just in here, remember? I notice kitchens. I’m hoping to own a place with a Pinterest-perfect kitchen someday, so I keep an eye out.”
I hand her the cocktail and take a seat on the opposite couch, which means I don’t have the ocean view. She immediately shakes her head. “No, you have to look at this view. Come join me in the expensive seats.” She’s so genuinely happy to be here, and it strikes me for the first time that despite her tendency to be late, she works long hours at the paper. She probably hasn’t taken a vacation day since she came on board.
I move next to her, and immediately I’m aware of the precise distance between us, like a chasm I’m desperate to close, even though there’s absolutely no precedent for that. And there’s that damned lavender shampoo which I can smell as soon as I sit down. This weekend is going to be my own personal hell, spending two entire days and nights around Linden with no reason to be any closer to each other than we are now.