When they let themselves in to Loretta's apartment, Oliver paused briefly in the doorway, taking a moment to appreciate the trust with which his star was allowing him into her home, into her private little haven.
If he were to be completely honest, she hadn't had much of a choice in the matter. Oliver had more or less declared that he would be taking her home in front of the doctor. When Dr. Fletcher had left and Loretta had mentioned, quietly grateful, that he needn't worry about her or about keeping his word, Oliver had taken on a positively scandalized look of offence and stated that he never went back on his word—all the while acutely aware that that was not exactly as true as he wanted it to be. Hadn't he just recently promised her the world along with their hit show?
Deciding resolutely to shrug such regrets off and leave them in the relatively ordinary corridor, Oliver stepped forward and as Loretta's little world opened up to him, he fumbled for the right words to describe the collective comforting palette of pattern and femininity and warmth that greeted him there. "Wow! Your place is…"
"I know, it's itty-bitty," Loretta tried to spare him the trouble of voicing his opinion without hurting her feelings. She must have thought Oliver lived in some lavish palazzo of a stylish mess—and she would have been right.
"It's art!" Oliver argued when the perfect description finally flashed clearly into his head.
This brightly earnest observation hushed Loretta up on the insignificant matter of her apartment's size, and she secretly assumed that bashful touched smile that Oliver was proud to say he had mastered the art of evoking.
Loretta leaned her back against the doorless door frame that separated the square yard of foyer from the rest of the apartment and heaved a little sigh. Without a word, Oliver reached over to undo the buttons on her black coat, revealing her costume below. She wasn't going to be needing it the next evening, so she hadn't bothered to change out of it at the theatre.
"There," Oliver muttered softly when the last button was released, and timidly Loretta let him help her out of the coat that she had only worn properly on the left arm. As soon as she slipped out of the sleeve, she resumed her position of holding her other arm up with it, cradling herself around the abdomen like that, and nodded towards the door behind Oliver.
"The closet's right there."
Oliver grinned with immense fondness at all the colourful shawls that pounced on him when he opened the door and at the familiar lovely spring-reminiscent scent that reminded him of home in its most profound meaning and was so present in her closet.
He observed Loretta attempting to walk confidently into the living area of the apartment—and faltering a little at every other step. "You know, I'm so tired, I might just go straight to bed," she told him distractedly, carrying her arm like she had done with the Pickwick baby. "You don't need to…"
Oliver, who didn't want to be dismissed just yet, not when Loretta was looking so disorientated in her own home, sprang forward with feigned confidence, and looking around for something to distract from his intrusive presence, offered, "Why don't I- Why don't I make you some tea? Hm?"
He sashayed into the tiny kitchen that reminded him of some little critters' snugly cluttered dwellings in old children's books and sought out the kettle. "And I know for a fact that you haven't eaten in hours." As the director there had really been no need for him to fast along with his cast before the show, but in the midst of the hectic opening night preparations and last minute checks and stress, Oliver had simply forgotten to eat.
"I don't think I have anything much…" Loretta admitted slowly as she perched herself against the back of the couch.
Having filled it up, Oliver put the kettle on and reasoned, unworried, "Well, I could order something up. I'm sure there's a deli or something nearby, and Mabel got me this amazing app—you can just press a few buttons and they deliver it to your door!"
Loretta, who seemed less impressed by this unprecedented feat of human invention, perhaps because she was clearly more hip than him, was more concerned with another part of his declaration. "Mabel?" she gave in to her curiosity.
"Yeah, you saw her tonight with Charles, remember?" Oliver explained as he fished his phone out of his pocket. It didn't escape him that there was a miniature chance that the vintage name might have alerted Loretta to the possibility of him already having a woman in his life. "That pretty young thing in that smashing green evening gown."
"Oh, yeah," Loretta was quick to accept his clarification, and Oliver thought he registered a vaguely pleased lightness in her tone. "She's your… daughter?" she supposed hesitantly. "Not your granddaughter?"
"Oh, no, she's just a friend," Oliver waved off her speculations as he crossed over to her side and assumed his place at the couch. "We- We solved two murders together. Now," he took the conversation into a much more relevant direction. "Do you like Chinese, Italian or Greek? There's three places just around the corner from here. It could be here in fifteen minutes."
With a proud gesture of satisfaction he turned the meekly beaming screen of his phone Loretta's way, presenting her with a multitude of options on the pint-sized menu. Loretta jumped slightly at the bright glare that offended her tired mind, but soon enough delved into the enticing task of decision-making and appetizing anticipation.
One of each of their arms entwined around Oliver's phone and for the next few minutes the world around them drew into a small, cosy circle of mutterings of, "This looks good, right?", "Mm-hm,", "What do you think about that?", and "I could eat a whole bucket of that,"—and a light-hearted bout of laughter from Loretta. During this relaxed, sunny interval two different person's hands tapped and swiped at the little bright screen that seemed to glow more proudly and giddily at the electric buzz it got from its fleetingly momentous role as a bridge between these two covertly shy people.
Rather pleased with managing the whole process of finishing the order by himself, Oliver was instantly taken aback by the worrying sight immediately next to the green verifying message that popped up on the screen. Loretta's hand was caught in a severe bout of trembling, and a quick glance up at her face confirmed that she was just as scared as Oliver was.
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he stepped around to stand in front of her and without allowing himself the time to start considering the presumed boundaries between the director and actress, grasped Loretta's hand in his. It was cold, and with inadvertently open vulnerability Loretta confided, "That shaking is new."
Reacting to the alarming symptoms of her serious condition with fatherly composure that was surprising even to himself, Oliver held her hand with gentle conviction. "Well, look at it this way," he tried to lift the sudden unwelcome gloom, but behind the jolly smirk in his voice was a poorly hidden steadfast promise. "I can always hold your hand and keep you steady."
Loretta's lips parted slightly with unreserved adoration at all the promises he was making tonight, and the wisp of a conundrum that was taking shape in that pretty head of hers must have been about whether or not she should allow herself to believe him.
It was then that Oliver felt the already familiar but never before quite so inevitable urge to kiss her. Now that she was sitting there right in front of him, almost against him, so earnest and trusting, with no social expectations or pretence or professional qualms between them in this little burrow of an apartment, he was almost sure she wouldn't mind.
But he didn't want to scare her any further than the rattling evening already had, so he escaped his self-indulgent dream by declaring with eagerness he had to deliberately muster up, "And for the cold—the only right remedy is tea." His eyebrows raised in playful expectancy, he strode back into the kitchen and turned to look around for tea cups. "Now where can I find… Aha!"
Recovering quickly from their tensely beautiful proximity as Oliver discovered the mugs below the countertop, Loretta guided him to the teabags, "The shelf right next to you."
As he prepared the tea, Oliver observed Loretta walking around to really sit on the couch and her good hand starting to feel around her head for the hair pins that were still keeping her hair up in the Nanny's milkmaid braid. With a graceful twitch of the wrist she seemed to have found them, and a couple of thin black hair pins were deftly pulled out. The top of the halo of a wispy braid came loose but the character of the Nanny was not yet evicted.
"Do you need some help with that?" Oliver dared to presume when it became unbearably obvious that Loretta couldn't get the rest of the pins out from that angle.
Still stubbornly prodding the obstinate hairdo, Loretta explained falteringly, "There's some, um, hair pins right at the top of my…"
"Oh, I see them, yeah," Oliver assured her, now right behind her, and made the bold decision to cover her hand with his for the second time in this precious short while. Loretta's agitated motions stilled, and she let a breathless moment of comfortable connection settle around them before she pulled her hand away. Oliver, who was ridiculously amazed at the silent permission to touch the silvery-blonde locks he had only dared to admire from afar, very carefully pulled out the remaining three hair pins, and Loretta's two signature braids fell down to her back.
"Thanks," she said in her little radiant voice as she pulled the braids onto her shoulders where she was used to having them.
A beat later she was already fumbling with her earring, which was another part of her costume and which made her grimace slightly with chagrin when it proved another insurmountable challenge for her. As Oliver finally took off his coat, he discreetly registered the bane of Loretta's distress—she didn't seem to be able to make her fingers work right tonight. However, although visibly shaken from the fall, as a mixed result of her growing weariness and Oliver's helpful, increasingly pleasant presence, she was getting bolder by the minute. "Could you-" she asked, unreservedly inviting him to join her on the couch. "Would you help me with my earrings? I can't get them off."
"How does it work?" Oliver replied readily, taking his place next to her and reaching up to inspect the perplexing feminine enigma that was Loretta's earring.
"Well, there's the thing that's snapped into the other thing," she explained, and the instructions, in their simplicity, made perfect sense. "See that?"
"M-hm."
"Now, you've got to unsnap it, pull it backwards from the top." Loretta's directions were illustrated with expressive little gestures manipulating the air.
"I don't want to break it."
Loretta chuckled at his endearing insecurity or maybe at the tender touch of his fingers against her ear. "You won't," she reassured him and soon felt the clip behind her ear loosen. "Good."
Her own hand joined Oliver's to pull the earring off, and their entwined hands lowered together from the side of her head that had been freed from its theatrical guise and was now delightfully just Loretta's. "Just like that," she muttered close to Oliver's face with a serene smile, her eyes twinkling gratefully.
"Well, that…" Oliver murmured back, mesmerized, "wasn't half that scary."
Loretta's eyes squinted adorably with mirth. "Right?"
"The other one, too?" Oliver quickly coaxed himself out of his trance with her captivating proximity.
He was already moving to sit on the other side of her when Loretta quietly agreed, "Yeah."
Feeling very well taken care of, Loretta waited patiently as Oliver reached up to her other earring, muttering to himself, "Now then. Backwards from the top, snap the thing out of the thing…"
Loretta had to bite back a charmed giggle at how sweet he was, but when she felt him gently pull the earring away from her ear on his own, she let out a deep relieved sigh. She almost expected him to kiss her earlobe then; she could feel Oliver's soft breath against it, and her cheeks tinted with a hot vibrant flush of colour at the unreasonably sensual notion.
The risqué daydream dissipated when Oliver placed the earring next to its counterpart. "Thank you," Loretta whispered, with radiant intensity smiling a smile meant for Oliver at the earrings in her hands. With her gaze lowered she was unaware that Oliver mirrored the smile.
Over the course of the last four months Loretta had rarely been so bold as to imagine Oliver being so sweet and caring outside of their working hours—a thought that was always accompanied by a secret all-consuming dread. What if this larger-than-life entertainer didn't really possess that quietly casual candour that she wanted to credit him with? Her misgivings were ridiculous, of course, because there was nothing pretend about the kindness with which Oliver treated her, and that was why she had trusted him completely from the first day on.
If it weren't for the creeping headache and her temporarily crippled arm, Loretta would have enjoyed nothing more than simply hunkering down on the couch with Oliver and a cup of tea and forgetting all about the catastrophic wreck of a show they had left behind at the Goosebury. All the stressful work and the backstage tensions and co-stars pulling on her braids and shoving her around like school bullies—she wanted to get away from all of that for just tonight.
She wanted to use this invaluable time to learn more about this hidden, uncharted side of Oliver Putnam, the real reliable man she had always suspected had to have been puppeteering the flamboyant showman from the rafters and whom she was allowed to see for the first time. Because with the way she was now, stuck with her unmistakable injury and stripped from her wobbly guise of an actual actress, Oliver, too, could have read her like a book if he only switched on the light and scooched a little closer still. Loretta would have happily opened up all of herself to him, her gentle little blueberry heart and all. After all, Oliver had claimed he could see her for herself right from the start, although Loretta never could comprehend that because during rehearsals, with Dickie at the studio more often than not, she sometimes didn't know herself where the character ended and where she started.
That's where Loretta had to stop herself, because there wasn't a chance Oliver could have possibly known her, not really. He would never know all about her if she didn't open up about her unforgivable lifelong secret. Oliver might not understand her and he might not respect the part of her that had made the decision all those years ago, but oddly enough, Loretta felt she could still tell him about her son—for a moment she felt she might actually burst it out right then and there—because she chose to believe that he would still like her, in spite of her shameful story.
"I think the tea is ready," Oliver considerately relieved the entirely pleasant tension that had stretched between them.
"Oh, yeah," Loretta said softly, resurfacing from her musings. As Oliver returned to the kitchen, she occupied herself with looking around for and immediately finding the rest of her hair pins. "Where did you put… Okay."
She plucked the pins from the armrest of the couch, carried them over to the little jewellery boxes on the shelves next to her writing desk and left the earrings, which didn't belong to her, on the desk. She would have to take them back to the theatre the next day—or whenever her caretaker saw it fit that she could return there.
"Is this okay?" Oliver wondered, carefully carrying two cups of tea over to the couch, and with a quick furtive look sought for confirmation from Loretta.
"Oh, I take my tea everywhere around here," Loretta reassured him, pulling her legs up to the couch as she took a seat again and therefore getting closer to curling up in Oliver's presence than she had held for possible. "Thanks," she accepted her cup. "Sometimes I don't have the time to sit down with it, so I just sort of run around with it and hope to still leave the house in dry clothes."
She could feel Oliver's almost unbearably adoring gaze on her when she took her first sip.
"I do that, too," Oliver admitted and was met with the brilliant amazed blue of Loretta's eyes. "But I usually lose my cup before I can finish it," he elaborated generously on their tiny but significant similarity. "When my son was little, he convinced me that there was a hobgoblin living in our closet who loved tea above all else and who would steal mine whenever I let it out of my sight."
It was Loretta's turn to be charmed as her heart melted at the thought of Oliver being a fun fairy-tale-belief-encouraging father. She allowed herself the sweet, dreamy notion that he was just the kind of man she would have liked to raise a family with.
The ring of the doorbell prevented her from further reflecting on that particular tantalizing fantasy.
"That must be the food." Oliver went to retrieve it, disposing of his teacup in such a nonchalant, forgetful manner that explained vividly why he was always losing his mugs at home.
Loretta, who was not entirely comfortable with playing the damsel in distress in her own home, seized her opportunity to take over the kitchen, and started gathering dishes and utensils for their meal. Oliver, whom Loretta had by taking note of all the signs she could discern throughout the time she had known him pinpointed as a bachelor, observed her with mild surprise, perhaps because he was used to eating from takeaway containers.
The little boxes with food were spread out on the countertop and as Loretta started unpacking, she took quick notice of Oliver standing all idle across from her. Feeling the need to find him something to do, so that he would not be staring at her and her one nimble hand darting around over the countertop, she waved towards the couch. "There's a folding table over there behind the dresser, and some chairs." Oliver had already spotted the hidden pieces of furniture by the time Loretta could add, "Maybe you could set those up for us."
In an attempt at hospitality despite the spontaneous nature of the evening Loretta sought out the only bottle of wine she had lying around, and once the table was up she started laying it with the plates and some of the plastic containers from the Chinese place round the corner. Oliver was putting up the chairs, and they passed one another a couple of times, instinctively engaging in a timidly awkward dance of avoidance and making way.
Oliver must have noticed that the plates she set out were totally different—one of them was actually a soup plate—but he didn't comment on the peculiar place setting born out of Loretta's living alone. "Can I help?" he asked instead, determined to maintain the fickle lightness in the atmosphere.
With an agreeing hum, Loretta passed him the wine bottle. "You could…"
"Yes! Of course," Oliver leapt at the chance to be of use, and was presented with the corkscrew.
Retrieving the last items from the kitchen proved an unexpectedly demanding task for Loretta and she had to put out a hand to the cupboard to cope with the uncannily strong pull of gravity she was experiencing. She disguised the sudden bout of dizziness by leaning against the counter and watching Oliver wrestle skilfully with the bottle. He put on an exaggerated show of wrenching it open for her and Loretta swept closer, encouraged by the healthy sound of her own laughter.
"I'm afraid I only have one wine glass 'cause I…" she muttered, sliding a wine glass and a whiskey glass onto the table. "Well, anyway, you can have it. I'll just…"
"No-no," Oliver protested categorically, and his cheeks tinted with a boyish flush even before he could get his following reasoning out. "I'm sure it'll look much more elegant between your delicate fingers."
As they settled at the table Oliver appeared relieved that, affectionately bemused, Loretta had taken his comment as the compliment it was meant as. Inspired by his swift success, he gestured comprehensively at the table and with an appropriately timid laugh quipped, "Well, this is an unusual set-up for a date."
Loretta's eyes travelled over the peculiar colourful array of takeaway containers and plates, wine poured into two fundamentally different glasses, and two half-empty cups of tea, and she uttered a tremulous, "Um."
"Because we're…" Oliver's eyes flicked between her and the food laid out between them, and with a carefree lightness, he covered up his chipped confidence. "Forget I said anything. Me and my big mouth," he chuckled with jolly deliberation. "See, I'll just stuff it, so I don't say anything more inappropriate."
True to his word, Oliver demonstratively took a large mouthful of noodles and inevitably got a splatter of sweet sauce on his chin. Loretta let out a hearty chortle at his disarming goofiness, thinking that an accidental date with a character like Oliver really should feel exactly like this. "I would go on a date with you," she admitted, soothing Oliver's clumsiness.
Fumbling with a napkin at his chin, Oliver stared at her in wonder. "You would?"
"M-hm," Loretta nodded with an assured smile. Encouraged by Oliver's delighted but disbelieving face, she playfully bit down on her lip, and at that Oliver made a strangled sneezing noise at the back of his throat. Loretta deciphered it to be a good sign, so with her heart in her hand, she ventured, "I know how strict you are about your show rules. But if the show is over, doesn't that mean that we don't have to follow them any more?"
A stunned clarity flashed into Oliver's eyes at the delightful fine print she had detected on the decision of calling off the show, at all the wonderful opportunities she was opening up to them. Loretta was almost positive she hadn't misinterpreted his hinting around but her qualms were only, finally, put to rest when Oliver cleared his throat and with a lopsided smile said, "Well, I hope you know what you're getting into, because I can be very annoying. There's no getting rid of me once I get my groove on."
Loretta, who had happily suspected as much, chuckled. "I know."
With the cosy feeling of like-mindedness hanging above the little dining table, the pair of them were quite naturally able to return to their meal. Everything felt more settled in this moment than it had felt for months, maybe even years, for Loretta. In spite of the workplace bullying and the son who didn't know her and the play that wasn't going to open after all, there was now something right in the middle of her life that she could be sure about.
"Oh, here, let me," Oliver reacted to Loretta clumsily stabbing a piece of chicken on her plate, and she was entranced by the unforced dedication with which those sure hands reached across the table and effortlessly cut the chicken she couldn't manage with only one hand.
"Thanks," Loretta said softly, all of a sudden recognizing the gesture. Oliver had been looking out for her in his protective, fatherly manner ever since the day they had met at her audition and he had insisted on helping her pick up the pages of script she had discarded when she had jumped into the Nanny's skin. Throughout the whole rehearsal period he had been adamant that she should feel comfortable and appreciated at all times—as his job as her director dictated, but Loretta still felt touched by his devoted attentiveness.
"You're not- You're not eating any of the chicken," she observed, easily treading out of the deep waters of their conversation. "What's the matter? You don't like it?"
Oliver studied his own plate and appeared surprised at the prospect that there was anything amiss about his meal. "Oh, no-no, I don't- It's not…" he stammered but then resigned, giving in to the opportunity to explain his dietary choices as it presented itself. "I don't really like solid food that much if I'm honest."
"Really?" Loretta was equally surprised and amused. "I've never heard that before. Then what do you… What do you eat? At all."
"Dips, mostly," Oliver deadpanned.
"Dips?" Loretta laughed in disbelief.
Oliver nodded earnestly. "You should try my diet. Dips for dinner!" he quipped. "It may be one of the best decisions I've ever made."
He stopped briefly and let his head slightly tilt to the side as he considered her fondly. "Well, maybe just about."
Loretta drew in a soft gasp at his tender remark, sensing the obvious compliment but blissfully feeling no pressure to respond. They fell into sweet silence and continued with their meal, each marvelling that this evening had turned into quite something else from what they had expected. Although it had had the makings of a disaster, it had turned out quite lovely after all.
Oliver insisted on washing up after dinner, and Loretta stood by his side, leant against the counter to mask her occasional dizziness, instructing him around her tiny kitchen. From time to time the comfortable conversation hitched up into snorts of uncontainable laughter, and at times, when Loretta was allowed, despite fervent protests on Oliver's part, to be of help and put something away, their hands brushed as kitchenware was passed along.
They realized a few steps ahead that after the dishes were done they would have to move on—to what exactly was too delicately flustering to think about. So the last few movements around the kitchen were made with deliberate delay—the last plate was returned to its place, the kitchen towel to its hook, the tap was turned off.
After the dreaded stillness had ultimately settled between them, Loretta willed herself to bring this unusually beautiful evening to an end. "It's late," she said gently. "Shouldn't you be getting back to your dog… and your… Mrs. Something?"
"Oh, Mama G, no, she's a parrot," Oliver shrugged off the suggestion. "No, they can do well without me for one night."
With that the meticulously confident momentum of the graceful way Loretta had planned to part for the night was halted and everything seemed uncertain again. In spite of the intimate tête-à-tête setting she hadn't expected Oliver to take such a straight-forward approach.
"For a- You're not… staying over?" Loretta interpreted with an edge of incredulity in her voice.
"Well, the doctor said I shouldn't let you out of my sight." Oliver had the decency to blush as he said this. He looked awkward and peculiarly out of place, even more so when Loretta removed herself from his immediate proximity.
"But," she whispered, as if this was something horribly indecent, "there's really nowhere you can sleep."
What Oliver said next brought about the immediate realization that he really wasn't trying to take advantage of the curious situation they found themselves in. Loretta was relieved—and not exactly surprised.
"Well, there's the couch," Oliver mentioned but was then struck by the notion that he hadn't seen another room or a bed around, and the couch seemed like the only plausible place for Loretta herself to sleep in. "Oh."
There was a strange squint of an accusation in the look that Loretta sent towards the couch. "But that's… That's way too narrow, I couldn't do that to you. You'd wake up with more pains than I have," she made a weak attempt at a joke, still anxiously looking to solve this puzzle with minimal embarrassment for the both of them. "Besides, what's gonna happen to me when I'm asleep?"
As soon as the light-hearted words were out of her mouth, the both of them were struck by the heavy realization that she could very well not wake up again. Oliver had banished that unbearable thought from his mind back on the stage earlier in the evening, back when the panicked touch of Loretta's hand on his arm had convinced him, ultimately, that he needed her to be a part of his life and not just his production.
Loretta's face fell slowly at the reminder of her frailty. She turned to head over to the couch, saying resignedly, "Will you help me move the couch back?"
Instantly awakening from his haze and following her, Oliver agreed, "Sure, yeah. What? This way?"
"Yeah, all the way back against the counter," Loretta instructed, already bending over to take one end of the couch, which Oliver was quick to forbid.
"No-no, you don't get to move anything tonight," Oliver protested adamantly. "Just- I'll get it."
Loretta stood back with a meek but appreciative wisp of a smile, and Oliver had the chance to prove his worth by moving the couch, one end at a time, up against the kitchen counter. When he eventually turned back from his proudly finished task, he found Loretta at the wardrobe at the opposite wall, her hand braced at a mysterious latch on the wall.
"Watch out," she told him, "and hold out your arms."
Perplexed, Oliver complied without a word and Loretta pulled the latch, upon which, to Oliver's complete astonishment, a bed fell out of the wall. He was unable to hold back a startled yelp but caught the foot of the bed nevertheless and lowered it to the floor.
"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" he mentioned merrily as he twisted the metal leg below the bed. He could see Loretta was trying her best to give him a reassuring smile, to show him that she was not uncomfortable now that they found themselves in a bedroom, but the expression was faltering and the shame of imposing on her made Oliver's heart heavy.
"I'm gonna go get ready for bed," Loretta said, averting her gaze, and manoeuvred past the bed and Oliver.
"Do you… need any help at all?" Oliver felt the need to ask, with no ulterior motive, remembering how difficult it had been for Loretta to get in and out of her coat earlier. "With your shoulder, I mean…"
Gathering some clothes—her nightgown most likely—from a drawer beside the bed, Loretta shook her head, keeping her eyes low. "M-mm."
As soon as she disappeared into the bathroom, Oliver dropped down onto the couch, deflated. The extended lull made him acutely aware of his role in this scene, and in spite of the urgent admiration with which he wanted to stamp every little detail of this extraordinary woman's life into his memory, Oliver felt too disgusted with himself to even look around any more, so he sealed off the cosy little room from his view. Distractedly he ran a hand through his hair, silently and lengthily berating himself at his incredible ability to turn a perfectly comfortable, beautiful evening into an awkward mess.
At the sound of the bathroom door opening again, Oliver immediately raised his head from his hands and jumped up from the couch. He was in too much of a hurry to rectify his mistake to pause and take in the intimately sacred sight of Loretta in her nightgown and robe, and the words started pouring out of his mouth eagerly.
"Look, Loretta, I'm so sorry—for barging in like this and for… making you feel uncomfortable in your own—lovely—home. I thought- I thought I was doing the right thing, and I'd hate to see anything happen to you, but if you're going to hate me tomorrow for overstepping all the possible boundaries here, then…" He was bewildered but not deterred by the tenderly admonishing amusement in Loretta's gaze as she listened to his fretting apology. "I don't know. Maybe you've got someone you'd feel more comfortable with looking after you. I didn't even ask if I could come over."
Seizing her opportunity to get a word in edgewise, Loretta came forward, still cradling her arm and apparently aware of Oliver's earnestly anxious trepidation about her well-being. "I ruined our show," she said in a tone lined with grateful fondness—and cut Oliver off before he could protest. "The least I can do is offer you some peace of mind."
The full impact of the way Loretta looked in her nightwear, stripped from her make-up and natural in her movements, struck Oliver belatedly when she walked barefoot over to the dresser next to the bed. For a fleeting sliver of a moment he believed wholeheartedly that she was a nymph—or a fairy perhaps. She would have resembled one even more if she had unbraided her hair, but that rare sight was not for any old mortal to see, Oliver supposed, more than he reasoned that the decision would make her hair easier to manage at night with one arm incapacitated. Loretta looked unexpectedly confident in her robe and there was a warm open generosity about her, as if she had come to some kind of a liberating conclusion about his spending the night with her.
From a lower drawer Loretta pulled out a fluffy bundle of a blanket and handed it to Oliver.
"I keep this for the chilly winter nights." Her nose crinkled adorably when she mentioned the chill and Oliver imagined her snuggling up under the blanket in her reading nook with a hot cocoa and a beloved book.
Loretta nodded in the general direction of her writing desk. "You can sleep on that side of the bed," she offered. "Just, um… If you snore, I might kick you." She let out a little laugh and Oliver felt the minty scent of her breath. "My mother used to complain I did that at strange sounds in the night when I was little."
"That's adorable." Oliver knew to treasure the glimpses he was allowed into her life. "And I'm not aware that I snore," he added with a playfully dashing grin. "I mean, I wouldn't know, because my dog doesn't talk and my bird doesn't do anything but cuss at me."
Loretta wouldn't have thought that she would climb into bed laughing tonight—but such was the magic of Oliver Putnam.
When it was Oliver's turn to use the bathroom, Loretta carefully wiggled out of her robe and pulled the covers up over her thinly clothed body. Her eyes fell on the fluffy blanket that Oliver had laid over the armrest of the couch and she tried her best to soothe her fluttering heart. She weighed her reluctance to waste the precious time she had with Oliver against the possibility of avoiding the awkwardness that they would in all likelihood revert to if they had to make small talk around the bed—and came to a decision.
She resolved to try very hard to fall asleep before her guest returned, putting herself in the silly position of having to keep up the pretence of having fallen asleep as she heard Oliver get back from the bathroom. Loretta heard him halt after he rounded the corner and felt the unmistakable warm weight of his gaze on her. During the breathless pause that followed Loretta mused on whether he was trying to discern her charade or was actually relishing the rare opportunity to see her in this exceptionally intimate position.
With a little click Oliver switched off the light.
Soon there was a shifting somewhere close-by but Loretta didn't feel Oliver join her on the bed. The vague unsettling feeling of not knowing where exactly he was in the room quickly morphed into loving frustration as she heard the couch softly creak under Oliver's weight. Her heart melted at the recognition of how considerate the daft man was for choosing to respect her modesty and spend the night on the couch that truly was too narrow for anyone to sleep comfortably on. Oliver must have realized that, too, but even after spending a couple of helplessly hilarious minutes trying to get comfortable on the thing, he didn't seem to be about to change his mind—probably out of pride.
When the sounds of poor Oliver trying to fit on the couch finally died down, Loretta really did start waiting for sleep. Lying there listening to the thick silence she felt her headache start building and berated herself in her head for not taking a painkiller when she was getting ready for bed. If she had to get up to get the pill now, she would have to be very quiet to not wake up Oliver.
As she waited anxiously for either the ache to subside or to make sure that Oliver really was asleep, her own breathing sounded louder to her than she would have liked and it blocked out any helpful clues about her guest. The headache that had started spreading from her right temple reached behind her eyes and tipped lower towards the nape of her neck, getting worse by the minute and surrounding her in a haze of loud searing pain.
Loretta didn't have the faintest idea how much time had passed before the unbearable headache finally prompted her to sit up. She did so very gingerly and still a weary but alert voice carried over to her, saying, "Where are you going?"
"Christ!" Loretta started, and her hand went out to switch on her bedside lamp. "I thought you were asleep."
In the warm ring of light that stretched across the room she saw Oliver sit up and slip his feet to the floor. He had taken off his jacket but had kept the vest and looked disarmingly adorable with his hair all ruffled.
"I can't sleep with this headache," Loretta admitted quietly. "I'm gonna get a pill."
Before she could turn to reclaim her robe, Oliver was already up and making his way swiftly around the bed. "I can get it for you," he volunteered with admirable commitment. "Just tell me where I can find it."
After a momentary hesitation, trying to recall if there was anything even mildly embarrassing to be seen there, Loretta instructed, "Medical cabinet, under the sink in the bathroom." Her voice escorted Oliver with unnecessarily precise directions, stumbling jerkily over details, "Right-hand side, second- No, third- third shelf."
On his way back Oliver brought her a glass of water for the pill, which Loretta left by her bedside along with the pill bottle afterwards, in case she should need them again during the night.
"Thank you."
"Sure." Oliver's voice rumbled with gentle devotion, but worry was still flickering in his eyes, which seemed deeper and even more steadily confident in the dim light.
Loretta watched him walk back over to the couch with a tilt of her head that substituted for rolling her eyes, because the latter would have hurt. "Now, don't play the hero—it's terrible sleeping on that couch," she scolded softly. "Come on over here, I don't bite."
Smirking to herself mischievously, she pulled her blanket up over her shoulders but didn't lie down until she won the hesitant staring contest between her and Oliver. Eventually he did shuffle over, his blanket gathered up in his arms, stumbling through a mixture of eagerness and apprehension.
Reaching over to switch off the light, Loretta felt the shift in the mattress as Oliver settled down behind her on the bed. She couldn't really turn onto her right side and towards him at all, so the only assurance she had of his immediate proximity were the slight slant in the mattress and the faint but steady sound of Oliver's breathing.
Loretta lay listening to it, and curiously, it calmed her to have him there with her. Tonight for the first time in a very long time she was not alone, but she was also not obliged to do anything but rest. That was an astonishing first for her—this complete absence of compulsion in someone's presence.
In their amicable private retreat all the rest of it was instinctively pushed aside—their jobs and her heavy secret, the facades that their friends knew them by and the lives they were tied to. It all fell away and Loretta could simply cherish the man himself, the warmth that his good humour and kindness instilled in her, the safety and appreciation that he made her experience, even though she was hesitant to trust these feelings themselves.
"Speaking of strange bedfellows," Oliver mentioned, although they weren't speaking but it was a fair guess that they were both pondering over a similar topic, "did I ever tell you about the night I spent in Jerry Orbach's laundry basket?"
"No," Loretta chuckled, relieved at the resumed comfortable easiness between them. "Tell me."
Oliver proceeded to tell the story and soon had Loretta muffling her giggles with her blanket. He was grateful that Loretta didn't turn onto her back to look at him because in the admiration with which he was savouring the silvery shape of her silhouette she could have read something profound and beautiful that he was not yet fully aware of himself.
When her laughter subsided, Oliver saw Loretta's head turn a little as she nuzzled her face against her pillow. "Thank you," she whispered and released a content little sigh.
Whether it was her gratitude for the absurdly hilarious story or—as Oliver was more inclined to believe—for him staying with her through this frightening, confusing night, Oliver replied with a solemn, "Anytime."
There was a lengthy pause then, and Oliver hoped with all his might that Loretta would believe his generous, sincere promise.
After a little while, with a sleepy smile that reached her voice, she muttered, "'Night, Oliver."
"Good night."