Sara was off the bed in a flash, and she slid under his arm as she got into the shower first.
“You cheated,” he said as he got in after her and pulled the glass door shut.
“It’s the influence of this house. There must be some leftover evil lurking about.”
He turned on the water, his arm about her, as they waited for it to warm up. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the blood I shed in here took care of that.” When she looked at him in question, he pointed to a scar on his shoulder. “I got shot on this case.”
Sara kissed the place. “You poor baby. I’m so sorry.”
He moved them under the warm water. “Actually, it was this wound.” He touched a place lower on his side, and Sara bent to kiss that.
He said, “I think—”
“Let me guess. You were wounded even lower,” Sara said as she went to her knees.
“Any injuries here?” she asked.
But Mike didn’t say anything.
It was nearly an hour before they got out of the house, and Mike drove them directly to a Best Buy.
“I thought you wanted essentials.”
“Music is necessary to life,” he said so seriously that Sara laughed.
They bought what Mike said were the most important things a house needed. She stood back as he chose the components of a stereo, but together they picked out a flat-screen TV that was much too big.
As Mike paid for it all, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask if she was going to be watching and listening with him, but she didn’t.
In the CD department they separated. She liked what she considered to be “modern” music but what Mike called “soulless rubbish.” He went to Andrea Bocelli. To Sara’s amazement, he was an opera buff. But when their hands met as they reached for an Eric Clapton CD, they laughed together.
“Classic,” he said, and she agreed.
To reach the next store, Mike whipped across a couple of expressways, got off what he called “the turnpike,” and they ended up in a divine shopping center with a huge Barnes & Noble. Like a piece of iron drawn by a magnet, Sara started for it, but Mike caught her arm. Instead, he pulled her into a Sur la Table.
Sara’d seen the catalogs but never one of their stores. For a moment she just stared at the shelves full of beautiful cookware. Mike lifted her hands, put a basket in them, and said, “Think pie making.” When she came out of her trance, he directed her toward the back, where she filled her basket three times. An obliging saleswoman took everything to the counter.
They packed the trunk of Mike’s car, then went to a restaurant called Brio for dinner.
“You still owe me a home-cooked meal,” Sara said, “because I made it into the shower first.”
“For a shower like that, I owe you a thousand meals. Here, taste this.” He held out a forkful of sea bass marinated in lime juice.
After dinner they went to a Bed Bath & Beyond.
“No flowers and no pink,” Mike decreed as soon as they walked through the door.
“And no brown plaid. Or racing cars or men kicking each other.”
“Agreed,” he said, and they set off.
They settled on off-white sheets and had fun putting their heads on the pillows and trying them out. But when they started kissing, they almost fell to the floor. If it hadn’t been for a curious little boy rounding the corner, they might not have stopped.
Laughing, they took their two big carts to the checkout. They had to stuff the backseat with the linens, as the trunk was full.
“No room for groceries,” Sara said. “And there’s nothing for breakfast.”
“That’s all right. I never eat before I work out.”