Layla smiled. “My students are extremely sweet. They’re also not hard to impress.”
Her throat was dry, so she reached for her wineglass and took a sip. The pinot was lukewarm, and she grimaced when she spotted the gnat floating in it. She fished it out and it seemed rude to be giving her wineglass so much attention right in front of him. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
He surprised her by saying, “I would, actually. My ex-wife doesn’t drink so I didn’t much, either. It sounds good, though. Thanks.”
She went inside and poured him a glass of wine. When she came back out, she handed it to him and sat down. “So, Norton,” she said. “Like the antivirus?”
Josh laughed. “Definitely not like the antivirus. And I know this because when I asked his former owner the same question, he said, ‘What the hell is an antivirus?’”
“You knew the person Norton belonged to?”
“Norton’s former owner was a ninety-six-year-old man named Carl who lived alone and whose house was likely to go up in flames at any moment due to his very faulty and not-even-remotely-up-to-code wiring. I’m an electrician, and his daughter hired me to take care of it. He was fine on Friday, but when I went back on Monday morning to finish the job, I discovered he had died at some point over the weekend.”
“Oh my God,” Layla said.
“Yeah. Norton had drunk all the water out of the toilet and had been eating garbage out of the kitchen garbage can. When I found Carl, Norton went and curled up on the bed next to him where he’d probably been since Carl died. It tore me up. He has a few abandonment issues because of it. It seems to stress him out when there aren’t people around. Sasha has wanted a dog for a long time, so he’s ours now.”
The story sliced at her heart. I’m not going to cry, Layla told herself. She blinked back tears and shook her head. “That is truly heartbreaking.”
He pointed at her guitar. “So, now I have to ask. Were you named after the Clapton song?”
“No. My dad’s sister died when he was thirteen. She came down with meningitis and was gone in less than forty-eight hours.” She winced. More death. Way to bring it back around, Layla. “Dad told me his parents were so touched when he and my mom announced my name after I was born.”
“Do you know how to play the song?”
She heard the cheering from the audience. Remembered her twenty-three-year-old self having the time of her life. “Yes.”
“Do you sing too?”
“A little.”
“How long have you lived here?” Josh asked.
“I moved in at the end of June.”
“It’s just you?”
“It’s just me.”
He didn’t ask for details; she didn’t offer them.
She hadn’t sat with a man in a long time. Liam had never been home during their last year of marriage, although it had taken a while for Layla to figure out that he was not actually working late the way he told her he was.
They drank their wine and watched Norton chase the birds. “Did you know you’ve got a light out in front?” he asked.
She had turned on the outside lights to make it easier for him to see the house number in case he arrived closer to dusk or even after dark. There were four lights, and one of them wouldn’t turn on even after she replaced the bulb with a new floodlight right out of the box. The homes in her neighborhood were the kind that were still nice but were starting to need a little bit of work, as her Realtor so eloquently put it. The good bones were there, but certain rooms were in dire need of updating. These were mostly cosmetic improvements, and Layla had no trouble hiring the flooring company down the road to install new carpet in the living areas and a good laminate in the kitchen. The painting she was perfectly capable of doing herself, and she had spent a considerable amount of time over the summer, in complete silence, soothed by the gentle sound of a paint roller turning the walls a creamy alabaster. The kitchen appliances worked fine, but Layla looked forward to the day when she’d saved enough to swap them out for something newer. Replacing the cabinets, countertops, and light fixtures would go a long way toward bringing the kitchen out of the nineties and into the new millennium. Of course, once she moved in she discovered a few things the inspector she’d hired had missed, things like the faulty outside light and the slightly unlevel floor in one area of the basement. Then there was the heating and cooling system that technically worked but probably only had a few years left. Same with the roof.
So maybe not good bones and certainly not great bones but definitely okay bones, which was all she really needed.
“I’ve changed the light bulb, but it still doesn’t work,” Layla said. Fixing the light wasn’t high on her priority list, especially with all the time she was putting into her studio. Plus, she’d have to find someone to do it. Someone who knew what they were doing and wouldn’t try and rip her off. It was one of those items she kept carrying forward on her to-do list, and even though she found it mildly annoying that she kept blowing it off, she didn’t really care enough to address it.
“I can take a look at it when we get back, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” she said.
They finished their wine, and before Josh left he told Layla he’d text her before he came to pick up Norton on Sunday afternoon. “And if you have any questions about him while we’re gone, don’t hesitate to ask.” He bent down to scratch Norton behind the ears. “And if you want to send a picture or something, that would be good too. For Sasha.”
He grinned and she said, “For Sasha. Got it. Have a great weekend.”
“Thanks. We will.”
Layla gathered up the wineglasses and her journal and her guitar. “C’mon, Norton,” she said as she led the dog inside. She might not have a husband or a child, but she had decided to be one of those glass-half-full kind of people. She had a guitar and wine and, for a few days anyway, a dog who looked sad that Josh had left but happy that Layla was here, which meant he wouldn’t have to be alone.
chapter 14
Josh
In the church, they rose as the wedding party made their way down the aisle and reached the altar. All they needed was the bride, and they turned toward the back of the church, where Amber was waiting on her father’s arm as the opening notes of the wedding march filled the air. Josh lifted Sasha up so she could see. His brother was looking at his bride as if she were the only woman on earth, and Josh knew he believed it, too. He’d been in those same shoes once, but instead of a wedding gown, Kimmy had been wearing a prom dress.
* * *
“You look beautiful,” Josh said.
“Really?” Kimmy said, grinning as she smoothed her palms over the yellow sequins that dotted the bodice. “Even in this vintage dress?”
“Absolutely,” he said.