Mrs Blackwood (lesbian romance)

CHAPTER TWO

"It's nothing. I bumped it somewhere, nothing serious. Ice will take the swelling down."

"And to think that I heard a thump this morning, just a moment before I saw you hastening to the courts through the window."

Then, Julie recalled the doorframe and shoulder incident.

"Now dear, come for lunch in an hour. When are your bookings? I see that you've changed professions." She leaned over the notebook, squeezing her eyes to read. "Oh, those are the last ones, they are our guests..." Grandma started her chat, knowing more about each guest than they would appreciate. She was like Poirot.

She read people like a real psychoanalyst. Julie recalled Vin's constant teasing about how Grandma should be hired by the FBI. Julie couldn't compose herself enough not to spread her lips into a mild smile, her grandmother talking passionately as if she was recounting the events of a soap opera.

"And you laugh at your elders, shame on you." Grandma went on undisturbed with a raised chin. "I'm telling you that I concluded that by his collar..."

She continued with the story until Vin interrupted her with a phone call, waiting impatiently for everything she had bought.

"In an hour, Juliette. Don't let me die of age while I wait for you," Grandma warned her one more time before leaving.

***

Julie was expecting home-made cuisine, but she found herself looking at meals ordered from a nearby restaurant. She wasn't complaining, shrimp would certainly be her first choice when it came to lunch. Vin came down and took some skimpy bites in passing, and their grandmother experimented with a dry fig pie in the kitchen, so Julie spent her lunchtime alone. Thankfully, the tennis courts weren't booked in the swing of the sun. Before leaving the table, she took a clean plate and filled it with shrimp; she knew that Vin had no appetite from the stress. Walking toward his room, she carried the plate in her left hand because of her shoulder injury.

"Julie, Julie." Vin paced across the room in a rush. "I don't know where I've put my things. I'll go crazy by the time I'm packed."

"Come on, don't be so overdramatic. You said that it was only for a few days. What you forget, you'll buy there, you're not going to a deserted island. Stores can be found everywhere, so stop this panic."

Vin calmed, and tossed his scattered clothes off the edge of the bed so Julie could sit on it.

"It's not that, I mean it is, but it is not..."

"Vin, you're nervous about the meeting. Everything will be perfect. I've come to go through your presentation and I've brought us some leftover shrimp. You shouldn't go on an empty stomach."

He leaned over her, pressed his lips on her forehead. She hugged him and patted his back. He took out several large posters.

"I've got it all on USB, but this way is easier for me, so we'll go through it with posters."

"Go, go, whatever suits you better."

In the beginning, he made large breaks between sentences, searching for the right words to begin his speech about monotone graphs. Julie listened carefully, smiling every time he connected two sentences without an unpleasant break. They went through the presentation several times, in fact, Vin repeated it until Julie had decided that he was reciting it. His shoulders straightened, voice deepened, and the breaks were made only in the right parts. Julie watched him proudly, forgetting the tennis courts, and her painful shoulder. She would have forgotten Mrs Blackwood too, if Vin hadn't asked, to her misfortune, how the work down on the courts was going.