Lainey awoke to tobacco smoke, guitar music, and an empty space beside her. She fumbled for her phone. It wasn't even eight in the morning. There were multiple texts from Kate:
Tell your hottie thanks for last night. Dinner at my place this week?
How's the Brit in the sack? He looks like he'd be fun.
Boom chicka wow wow
Everything's better with an accent
Make sure he leaves with your phone number this time.
There was a photo attached of the four of them at the bar last night. Drunk and happy. Paul looked a little dazed.
Lainey was smiling when she dropped the phone onto her nightstand.
She pulled on a short blue satin robe on her way out of the bedroom. Paul was on the couch, guitar in hand, a cigarette poised between his lips. Not wanting to interrupt, she sank down onto the steps and rested her head against a wooden spindle, listening to her own private Paul show.
He was playing a melancholy melody in a minor key. It sounded vaguely like the chords he'd used in "The Things We Said Today." She listened carefully, letting her eyelids drift closed, trying to work out whether or not she'd ever heard this tune before.
The music stopped and Lainey opened her eyes to find Paul watching her from the couch below. "I need a piano," he said.
"I'm sorry, did I sleep through the part where you said 'sorry for waking you up babe, how about I make you breakfast in bed now?"
"Do you think I could get my hands on the Wurly today?"
"Do you ever sleep?"
Lainey went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Fifteen minutes later she toweled herself off, opened the door of the steamy bathroom and was greeted by the smell of...bacon?
She threw on a pair of grey sweats and a short pink cotton top and hurried down the stairs.
Paul was whistling a cheerful tune, flipping pancakes in one skillet while bacon sizzled in another. Lainey stared at the domestic scene for a moment. She scratched her neck. "I have so many questions right now."
"Morning love. You look fetching." He held the cigarette out to his side and pressed a kiss to her damp hair.
"Do you ever sleep? You can cook? How the hell did we get bacon?"
The saucer he used to stub out his cigarette was already crowded with cigarette butts. "Yeah, you know you hardly have any food here. Good thing the back door to the house was open."
Lainey slumped into one of the chairs at her tiny dinette set. "Hold on. You just went grocery shopping in my dad's kitchen?"
Paul poured a mug of something hot and steaming from a kettle and set it in front of her. "Here you are, love."
"Is that tea? Please say it's tea." She took a sip and groaned with appreciation. Then her eyes narrowed. "Is that Jade's tea kettle?"
"How do you not have a kettle, Lainey. Are we savages?" Paul stacked two fluffy pancakes onto a breakfast plate. He added two strips of bacon and presented the plate with a flourish.
"Paul McCartney is cooking bacon in my kitchen in 2012. Is this real life?"
He fixed his own plate, turned off the stove, and grabbed two forks and a bowl of freshly washed strawberries on the way to the table. "Bon appetit."
YOU ARE READING
All In Good Time - A Time Travel Beatles Fanfiction
Hayran Kurgu"The one you love is only a step away." Lainey scoffed at the words of the old gypsy fortuneteller. Then the woman handed her a locket ring revealing her grandmother's deepest secret, and the magical ride began.
