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  www.ylva-publishing.com

  Other books in the Window Shopping Collection

  Tread Lightly by Catherine Lane

  The Last First Time by Andrea Bramhall (Coming Winter 2017)

  Other books by L.T. Smith

  Beginnings

  Driving Me Mad

  Forget Me Not

  Hearts and Flowers Border

  Once

  Puppy Love

  See Right Through Me

  Still Life

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Astrid and Daniela for having faith in my writing. Not just faith, but giving me a little push when I so desperately needed one. Without both of you, this story would never have been written, never mind published. Thank you for rigorously ensuring that Ylva Publishing stays true to your vision, holding quality and value as the norm. I only hope I continue to live up to your high standards.

  I am “chuffed as little mint balls” to be asked to participate in the Window Shopping series in particular. It’s such a fantastic concept—the opening paragraph stays the same but the author has the freedom to take her tale anywhere she wishes it to go.

  I cannot wait to read what the other authors have created with the same stimulus. It will be as if we are all standing at the same starting point and then “BANG!”, the firing pistol sounds, and we shoot off in different directions, each of us charging the right way for her creation.

  Next, I send my undying thanks to Day Petersen for again being a dream editor—such patience, humour, eagle eyes, and ability to teach me so much. You are brilliant, Day. I love working with you, and I hope to work with you again soon. If you’ll have me, of course.

  Also, thanks to Jo for combing through the text and spotting the bits and bobs that both Day and I missed. These are the niggling things that would have driven me mad if they would’ve been in the final version. Big thanks to you.

  Thank you to Adam Llyod for the cover.

  Finally, thank you, dear reader, for constantly being my support. There is not much point writing a story that will never be read, or telling a story that will never be heard. Thank you for continuing to want to know my tales. This makes me want to keep writing them.

  Dedication

  To love and friendship. The perfect couple.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About L.T. Smith

  Other Books from Ylva Publishing

  Coming from Ylva Publishing

  Chapter 1

  The sun reflected off the window, obscuring the view of the shop inside. Still, Jamie (or Jane?) was hyperaware of the products on display. She shuffled her feet and coughed, but didn’t move towards the door. In the window she caught the reflection of Brittany’s easy smile, as if she frequented sex toy stores all the time.

  Brittany? Brit-ta-ny? Why I’d chosen that name to grace the character of one of my leading ladies in my new novel I would never know. It wasn’t a bad name, but anyone reading the jumble of words on my computer screen likely wouldn’t find Brittany a fitting appellation for the strong, silent butch I was aiming for. Not that Jane or Jamie or Joanna, or the myriad of other names beginning with J used to christen the other member of the love-struck duo was any more forceful.

  It wasn’t just the names I was struggling with, it was everything—the setting, the opening, the deciding on each precise word to use. All these things had come quite easily in the past, but now crafting each syllable, each word was like pulling teeth—my own teeth, without anaesthetic and using rusty slip joint pliers.

  In just over three hours, I’d written fifty-seven words, fifty-five if I deleted the choice of name. The rest of the time had been consumed by three coffees, two restroom breaks, side trips to the Internet to watch cute or/and funny dog videos, and a fixation with the small hole left by the removal of a picture that used to hang in the space just above my computer screen. And therein lay the rub.

  It was ultimately because of that empty space, that small hole, that missing picture that I was having so much difficulty writing a tale about two women who had fallen in love. The vacant spot was a constant reminder that, in actuality, I was not the romantic type, not the kind of woman who could commit fully to a relationship. The missing picture had been a gift from my now-ex, Jenny—a name that, uncannily, started with the letter J—but the pieces of that gift were now in the wheelie bin outside. My former girlfriend had taken it upon herself to snatch the picture from its place on the wall and hurl it at my head. The frame had tried to hold everything together, but the glass had smashed into tiny pieces. The picture, a smiling shot of the both of us on a day where I mustn’t have pissed her off as much as I usually did, was ruined. Like our relationship, as it happened. There was no amount of glue that could patch us back together. The mending of our relationship or the picture both seemed to require too much effort, especially on my part, although judging by Jenny’s parting words, she wasn’t up for the challenge either. Being called “a cold-hearted waste of time” might be classed as pretty tame by today’s standard of insults, but it still hurt, even more than the picture frame that smacked me on the back of the head.

  I didn’t respond. I tried to rise above name-calling, believing myself above degrading myself in a war of words, hoisting myself to almost nun-like spiritual levels whilst delivering my most pitiful look.

  The look was maybe not the best thing I could have done at that precise moment, as it could have given the impression that I was pitying her rather than pitying myself. I was just glad there were no more pictures hanging near her as she was leaving. I was even happier she had her back to me and hadn’t seen the look I’d shot her.

  She stopped on the doorstep, hesitating only a moment before turning and delivering a tirade that encompassed her view of life, love, the world, and, ultimately, the reason why humans were on this planet in the first place. And what the future held for a loser like me.

  “You’ll end up a lonely old spinster, Brynn.” Jenny’s finger waggled at me as if she was an annoyed parent talking to a naughty child.

  I ducked away, as her hand could have easily made contact—and not in a positive way.

  “Fuck sake! I’m not going to hit you. That’s not my style.”

  I didn’t remind her that she had pitched a heavily weighted, possibly concussion-causing object at my head not five minutes before. Instead, I cupped the spot and winced, letting my action speak for me.

  “Do you know what your problem is?”

  I didn’t bother with a reply. I knew she was going to tell me, even if I did actually come up with the correct answer.

  “You want the fairy tale, the stories you write, but let me tell you this...”

  I pressed my lips together, suppressing the urge to just tell her to fuck off.

  “Love like in the fiction you write doesn’t exist. It is a dream, an ideal. Love doesn’t just fall into your lap and you both live happily ever after. You have to work at a relationship!”

  I stepped towards her, and her expression shifted from annoyed to intrigued. I think she believed I was going to make some huge romantic gesture, and that was exactly what I did, for me.

  “But Jenny, I would work at a relationship, if I believed the relationship was worth it.” The air between us seemed to still. �
�You may think I am cold-hearted, a waste of time, but I know one day I will find the one woman I will give my all to. And that, apparently, is not you.”

  Not waiting for her response, I closed the door in her face. Jenny didn’t react, didn’t kick or bang on the door whilst hollering insults. She stood on the step for a moment whilst I watched her through the frosted glass, then she turned and left me to begin my search for Ms Right—the woman I was meant to spend the rest of my life with.

  But that was then, and this was now, and I was seated at my desk, faced with fifty-seven words and not much else. Now was the moment I was beginning to believe that maybe Jenny had been right: Ms Right was a figment of my imagination, and my imagination, it appeared, was as dead as a dodo.

  Chapter 2

  It was just over three weeks since Jenny had left, and for three weeks I’d avoided everyone. There seemed no point in telling people that, once again, I had fucked up a relationship. I didn’t need to announce my shortcomings to all and sundry; social media was more than capable of doing it for me, with a little help from Jenny. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that changing her relationship status from “in a relationship,” surrounded by love hearts and kisses, to “single,” with a tumbleweed rolling dismally and tirelessly next to the word, meant that we were no longer a couple. If that emoji wasn’t enough to inform the masses that we were no longer together, every photograph of us together, and any with just me in it disappeared into the cyber black hole that swallowed broken relationships, at least until someone reposted it and tagged you again.

  Still struggling with the writing, I had increased my word count to sixty-four. The detailed description of a window wasn’t actually getting me anywhere, but I couldn’t seem to move past the opening paragraph. I knew I should change it, set the story someplace else, but somehow that would feel like I’d failed. Stupid. Very stupid. But very real. Weirdly, I had never classed myself as a stubborn person, although most of my exes certainly did, and for once I was beginning to see things from their perspective.

  With a swipe of the mouse, I highlighted all the text, then pressed Delete. The starkness of the white screen seemed to burn my eyeballs. Sixty-four words were not War and Peace, but they had at least given me hope that I had a smidgeon of creativity left.

  “Fuck!” My cursor moved to Edit and Undo, bringing my words back like Lazarus rising from the dead. Relief settled over me, a strong emotion considering I had banged out three times that number of words just describing the eye contact between my two lovebirds on their first meeting when writing my previous stories.

  This was not good. Actually, this was shite. It was a good job I didn’t rely on writing to pay the bills and put food on the table. Teaching creative writing at the local college fulfilled that responsibility.

  Ding dong!

  And the last thing I needed at that precise moment was for my creative flow to be further stymied by an outside interruption.

  Dinga dinga dong!

  Clamping my teeth together, I leaned forwards to stare more intently at the computer screen, as if staring at the smattering of words would distract my attention from the person or persons ringing my bell as if they held shares in the company that made them.

  Dinga Dinga Dinga DONG!

  My jaw was beginning to ache, but I continued to ignore the persistent ringing. The ringing turned to banging on the door, then slamming with the knocker, then back to ringing the bell. The whole process was beginning to really fuck me off. Why couldn’t whoever it was just get the message that they were not welcome? They must know by now that there was no way in hell I would be answering the door.

  “Open the door! I know you’re in.”

  The words shouted through my letter box were ordinary, simple, and they changed everything. The gritting of teeth turned into a slackening of jaw; the intent stare at the computer screen shifted to the door leading to the hallway. My heartbeat picked up tempo, crashing against my ribs and making my breath catch. I knew that voice, and the person delivering the words was neither ordinary nor simple and would never be classed as plain by any stretch of the imagination.

  “Brynn?”

  I couldn’t remember standing, or moving around my desk and towards the door to the hallway. I would have been hard pressed to explain how I moved down the hallway and opened the door without conscious thought. It was the cool air on my face that made me realise I was standing on the doorstep in my pyjamas at four-thirty on a Sunday afternoon.

  She had her back to me, but I knew for certain sure that it was Gillian Parker. Even though it was just shy of eighteen months since I’d last seen her, there was no way I would ever mistake anyone else for her. From behind, she might have been classed as “average” by any passer-by, and they could have been forgiven for thinking that. But no one would ever say the same about Gillian Parker once she had fixed her attention on them. Or on me, for that matter.

  “Gill?”

  The woman spun around, her expression shifting from blank to ecstatic in the blink of an eye, her mobile phone held aloft as if to indicate that she had been in the process of texting.

  I didn’t get the chance to say anything else before I was enveloped in strong arms, the warmth of her seeping into me. My senses came alive, her scent pervasive and captivating, and I couldn’t get enough of the smell of her hair, her skin, her essence. It consumed me, and I was utterly intoxicated by her once again.

  After all this time. That was the thought that made me pull away from her and hold her at arm’s length. I couldn’t allow myself to become absorbed by her all over again. I’d been down that road, and it wasn’t the best journey I’d ever taken. I think the words heartbroken and devastated came close to describing the feelings I had experienced as a seventeen-year-old budding lesbian who had suddenly realised her feelings for her best friend were a tad more than those expected for a BFF. The words didn’t completely nail how my world had disintegrated when I had grasped that Gillian Parker did not feel the same way about me as I did about her.

  Fifteen years had passed since my vulnerable heart had been shattered. Given the way my heart was reacting at finding her standing on my doorstep, I apparently wasn’t over her yet.

  “You look…” Gill’s eyes half closed in thought before she delivered the stinger, “…tired.” She tilted her head, a smile creeping across her lips. “But, tired or not, you are still one gorgeous woman, Brynn Morgan.”

  A wisp of flattery, and I was like putty in her hands. “And you are still a silver-tongued charmer.”

  I tried to make the compliment lighthearted, but I wanted her to know that she couldn’t just waltz into my life and make me believe I was anything more to her than a friend, not that she had ever done otherwise. The love and adoration had been agonisingly silent and definitely one-sided. Gillian Parker had never known I was in love with her when I was a teenager, or if she did, she had never let on that she knew that I was a total dickhead who was mooning after someone she could never have. Her being straighter than a laser put paid to that.

  She opened her mouth to rebut the “silver-tongued” label, something she had always done in the years I had known her, but I cut her off.

  “So, what brings you here, Parky?” The moniker slipped out with familiar ease, and Gill’s short laugh made me grin, but then I had to go and fuck it up with, “Not heard a peep from you for way too long.”

  I cringed immediately after I’d said it. I didn’t really want her to pick up on the underlying accusation inherent in my statement, and wanted to take it back.

  “At the moment, I’m living up to my name.”

  “Huh?” I shook my head, unsure whether what she had said was a dig at me having a dig about her, or was in some way linked to her being a charmer or sweet-talker.

  “Parky. I’m parky. Cold.”

  Patently thickheaded, I still didn’t understand what she was trying to get across.

  Gill tutted and shook her head. “Are you going to le
t me in, or do you want me to freeze to death on your doorstep?”

  “Oh shit! Sorry. Fuck!” I staggered backwards a step, my body turning slightly to give her room to slip past me.

  Gill laughed and stepped forwards. Her hand landed on my arm and delivered a small squeeze, inadvertently creating a sensation way beyond what a simple squeeze should incite. She leaned nearer to my face, and her mouth came dangerously close to mine. “Come on. Get me warmed up, woman.”

  The heat emanating from my face could have done just that, but Gill moved past me and into my house. I tilted my head skywards and thanked whoever was listening for letting me off the embarrassment hook for once.

  “And whilst we have a cuppa, you can tell me why you are still in your jim-jams at nearly five in the afternoon.”

  Maybe I had expressed my thanks a little too soon. Instead of asking what she would like to have, I scuttled off into the kitchen so she wouldn’t see the darkening shade of crimson colouring my face.

  Chapter 3

  I could hear her moving about in my office as I prepared the cups, teabags, and hot water. Even though I knew what beverage Gill would opt for, I was halfway through making it when I poked my head through the kitchen doorway and shouted, “Tea?” like I was a fishwife.

  “Milk, no sugar!” she called back.

  A sense of familiarity washed through me, and a lump of emotion welled in my throat. I was mortified. I imagined Gill coming through to check on the progress of her anticipated brew and finding me blubbering over the mugs. Instead of giving in to my emotions, I stared at the cups—well, more specifically, I stared at the tea bags bobbing in the mugs. I tentatively caressed the rim of Gill’s cup, and the warmth of the brewing beverage heated the tip of my fingertip.

  “You trying to hypnotise the poor little buggers?”

  “Fuck!” I jumped and poked the cup with some degree of force. The mug scuttled sideways and wobbled precariously like a pissed-up ballerina before steadying itself. My overzealous, and slightly delayed, brain failed to understand the emergency had passed, and thus became the instigator in the demise of the cup when I lunged out to grab it.