Bed of Roses

Chapter 4

After two and a half hours of catching up, Peggy stands up from her seat on the ottoman. “Coffee? Tea?” she asks, walking to the small kitchen and pulling open the cupboards. “Would offer you a glass of cranberry juice, but I'm far too stingy to share.” She shoots him a sharp, cheesy grin with her ivory dentition gleaming and her hair tossed over her shoulder.

Liam grimaces. “Eh, yuck. You tease me like that on purpose,” he replies. “Tea will do.”

Peggy laughs, amused by his disgust. She extends her arm upward, nails clawing at the top shelf to grab a packet of honeybush tea from an already opened box. She folds the lapels inward and pushes the box to the back of the cupboard.

“You know,” she says, grabbing a cup from the drying rack near the sink. Peggy fills an enamel tea kettle with tap water from the faucet and sets it down to boil atop a ring of blue flames on the stove. “I only keep this stuff around for you.” She sets the mug down on the counter top and it clangs noisily against the marble surface.

He holds his hands over his heart, fluttering his fingers like butterfly wings. “Love, I'm flattered.”

“Wasn't meant as flattery, you arrogant oaf.” The casualness and informality of her comment is almost insulting by itself. She rinses the frothy bubbles off of a sink full of dishes and sets them to dry on the almost empty rack of bone china and silverware. Peggy pats her hands dry on the dish towel and tosses it aside where it lands dangerously close to the stove top.

“Hey!”

“God, Liam! I'm kiddin' with you!” Peggy takes a glass cup from the same drying rack and sets it beside the mug. She opens the fridge, pulls out a jug of cranberry juice and pops open the cap. “I think you're the smartest person I know.” Peggy pours the juice into the glass which almost instantly begins to drip with condensation.

Liam grunts, “Oi, don't you suck up to me now, little miss.”

“Who's suckin' up? You're nothin' special.”

“Geez! Hit me right in the kisser why don't ya?”

Peggy balls her hand into a fist and shakes it at Liam. “When the day rolls around, just remember that your dumb arse asked for it.”

“You wouldn't,” says Liam, tauntingly. “You're a pacifist, hon. You'd lose your bottle quickly.”

“Well,” Peggy drawls. “I make exceptions for exceptionally ugly chaps like yourself.”

Liam snorts, “To believe you defended me against the bullies in secondary school. Look at ya, you're a bully!”

She moves her lips from the brim of the glass and glares acutely at the boy on her recliner. “And don't you forget it,” Peggy says before winking at him.

He laughs. Whether it's out of fear or amusement, Peggy cannot tell. “Is that water ready yet?”

Scoffing, Peggy sets down her glass and walks to the stove. The tea kettle whistles an almost sweet, pleasurable tune that resonates all throughout the small flat. She turns the dial to its 'off' position and the burning palette spits out a flame the color of soggy, old orange peels before slowly flickering away. Carefully, Peggy pours the boiling water into the mug and sets the kettle back on the stove top. A wisp of smoke from the cup curls and tangles in the air as she dips the packet of flavoring into the water.

“I oughta pour this on you, ya moron,” she mumbles, placing the mug into Liam's hands.

He smiles at her sarcastic tone. “You're the loveliest person I know.”

Rolling her eyes, Peggy jokingly jabs him in the jawline. “You're a doll.” She goes back to the kitchen to empty out the enamel tea kettle into the sink; at the same time, casually sipping on her ice cold cranberry juice. “How's the tea?”