Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Carl clapped a hand on Leo’s shoulder. He’d worry about the details later. “Chin up. This famous pianist will be your guest speaker.”
But after all brains are not the best things in the world.
L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Chapter Five
Carl had quite a few drinks that evening at the Berhampore local. He wasn’t struck with inspiration how to pull off being a musical genius guest speaker, but he was struck with all-consuming laughter. The please-pity-me kind.
Guess who’d come to help out behind the bar?
He wagged a finger at Grayson. Shook his head. Drank another beer.
Twelve hours later he was preparing to nurse a headache by making a mid-morning smoothie. The night had become a blur.
He rubbed his temples.
Never mind that. More pressing was a plan for Leo’s assembly—
His phone shrilled. A call. From the musician himself.
Carl spent the first few minutes of the call fretting alongside his double. Seemed like they were twins indeed, the way they gravitated towards trouble . . .
An obnoxiously loud whizzing sounded outside, and it did horrible things for his head. He gritted his teeth and pulled out essentials: banana, apple, yoghurt, berries . . .
Jason sighed down the line. “How’re things for you in Wellington? Anything I need to know about? Post?”
Carl almost upended the blender. Um . . . He swallowed hard.
“Carl?”
He set the blender down with a thunk. “Oh, look at the time. I’ve gotta go. Later.”
He hung up and tossed his phone onto the counter and paced the spacious room. The whizzing seemed to echo in the space, and he marched towards the worst of it, ending up in the master bedroom where the windows sat close to the chest-high fence separating the villa from the next yard. “Crikey, who’s making all that racket?”
He yanked open the window.
The whizzing suddenly stopped. Unravelling himself from behind the fence was Grayson, holding a line trimmer. They shared a few dry blinks, and Carl leaned over the sill. “What’s your sign?”
Grayson pulled down his earmuffs. “Excuse me?”
“Are you the Scorpio supposed to stir up stuff?”
Judgy eyebrows lifted.
“You so are. Annoying.” Carl shut the window, and ten seconds later opened it again. He tossed out some flannel. “Stop flaunting your chiselled abs.”
About ten minutes later, Grayson appeared at Carl’s front door with his flannel shirt buttoned to the chest. “May I come in?”
Carl was staring at his shirt, the way it sat perfectly over that torso. It’d been better when he was flaunting! That way, at least, Carl’s favourite flannel would still look best on Carl.
He stopped his fingers from repeating the fast furious antics they’d tried on Jason’s suit jacket.
“May I?”
Carl snapped his head up and narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“You and I need to talk.”
There was a depth to Grayson’s gaze that suggested this was something serious. Carl’s stomach twisted as he shuffled back and let him inside.
They moved into the kitchen, where Carl quickly skirted to the opposite side of the kitchen island. His smoothie was one step away from completion, and Carl smile-nodded to Grayson while fruit swirled together with a stop-and-start noise that rivalled the one Grayson had been making outside.
“You asked if I was here to stir up stuff . . .” Grayson’s words came in and out of focus between whizzes. “Met a few times . . . That first time . . . rescue . . .” A touch to his forearm. Startled, Carl dropped his finger from the blender button and swung his head to Grayson who was . . . looking at him. Somewhat beseechingly. “Remember?”
Carl blinked. First time meeting. The bike rescue. Of course he remembered. “Of course I remember.”
Grayson nodded, and patted his arm. Carl jerkily pressed the blender button again, like it might ward off the unasked-for sparks.
Then jabbed the accelerated blending button.
“Trouble . . . Careful . . . Cliff.”
Carl stopped blending. What? No, he must’ve said shift. He was everywhere all the time. Talking shifts and how they kept meeting made more sense. Carl nodded. “You certainly turn up when I least expect it.”
“Just as well!” Grayson removed his hand and pulled a clean glass from the cabinet like he was right at home.
“Huh?”
Grayson poured the smoothie out for him. “We seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Maybe you don’t want to hear this from me, and I don’t mean to offend you. I just want you to know you don’t have to hide it. You have someone to talk to.”
“Talk?”
Grayson passed him the glass, his voice quiet, full of patience. “It’s better than drinking and doing something you regret.”
Carl stilled, hand clammy on the cool glass. What did he do last night? What prompted this visit? This serious way of talking? Those dark imploring eyes. “I . . . I should really not drink anymore.”
“Along with that . . . perhaps open up? Be honest?”