“I know,” I said gently. “It’s what makes you good at anything you do. I admire that. And like I said, I don’t mind losing to a better opponent.”
She smiled without lifting her eyes.
“But you have to make me think I lost fair and square, not that I was cheated.”
“I know.”
“Because I’m completely lost where Christy is concerned.”
Her smile peeked from behind the clouds.
“Yeah,” I said with a soft laugh, “I’m head-over-heels falling for her.”
“I told you so.”
My expression slowly fell at the thought of what I had to do next.
“What’s the matter?”
“Now I need to have a long talk with Gina.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t keep stringing her along. She’s a wonderful person and deserves a guy who’ll treat her right. I’m not doing that, so I need to be honest with her.”
“Yeah. Are you going to call her tonight?”
“I don’t think so. I want to sleep on it and figure out what I’m going to say.” I laughed at a sudden thought. “I’ll probably run ten miles tomorrow.”
“You’re always calmer after you do.”
“I know. It bugged the hell out of you until you figured that out, didn’t it?”
“It did. I hate not knowing what’s going on.”
“So… now you know what’s going on with Gina. Are you happy?”
She started to say yes but then thought better of it.
“Ah,” I said slowly. “The penny just dropped, didn’t it. For every win, someone loses. Real people with real lives, Wren. And someone loses. That hurts.”
“I… hadn’t thought of that.”
“I didn’t think you had.”
“I’m definitely gonna need that drink.”
I nodded. After a moment I stood and went to the kitchen, where I took
down three glasses and reached to the top shelf for a lozenge-shaped bottle, Rémy Martin XO.
“This okay?” I asked when I returned to the dining room.
Wren took one look and laughed. “You sure know how to drown your troubles.”
“Hey, when I do something, I do it right.”
“You do,” she said softly. “I’ll have to remember that.”
I set the glasses on the table and poured a healthy amount into each.
“You know that’s about fifty dollars of cognac, right?”
“We’re worth it.” I started to call to Trip, but she stopped me with a gesture.
She picked up two glasses and handed one to me. She lifted hers, and I did the same. “One day we’ll look back on this and laugh,” she said. “I hope so, at least.”
“I think we will.”
“You’re a nice guy, Paul. Thanks for reminding me. I…” She sighed. “I was so focused on winning that I forgot that.”
“Thanks.”
“And…” She couldn’t help grinning. “You and Christy are gonna owe me for the rest of your lives. But—!” She held up a hand. “I have to let it happen on its own. I will. I promise.”
I arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“Shut up! I’m really trying here,” she protested. “Let me have my illusions, all right?”
I laughed and touched my glass to hers.
We drank.
“Holy crap,” I said. “That’s smooth.”
“Told you. There’s a small fortune in these glasses. You don’t drink three fingers of this like the cheap stuff.” She smiled at me. “But we’re worth it, like you said. You and Christy definitely are.”
“You are too. You just need to act like it.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
“That’s Trip’s job.”
“Well,” he said from the doorway, “sometimes I know when to let the other guy do the heavy lifting.”
Wren smiled and gestured for him to join us.
“I decided to investigate when you two got quiet,” he explained.
She nodded and slipped her arm around his waist.
He picked up the third glass of cognac. “So, what’re we drinking to?”
“To Paul and Christy,” Wren said.
“How ’bout you and me too?” he suggested.
“To all four of us,” I said, and raised my glass.
We clinked them and drank.
“Oh, man,” Trip said. “That is good.”
“Feels kinda strange toasting without her,” I said. “Christy, I mean.”
“We knew who you meant, dude.”
“She’ll join us eventually,” Wren said.
“You really think so?” I asked.
Her eyes twinkled. “I don’t fight fair, remember?”
“So help me God, I do!”
I didn’t run ten miles the next morning.
More like twelve.
I wanted to be honest with Gina, but honesty was a sliding scale, with brutal on one end and gentle on the other.
Christy was sitting at the kitchen table when I returned from my run. She cradled her head in her arms, and she looked like she’d been there a while.
“I can’t do it,” she said without looking up.
I stripped off my sweatshirt and fanned my T-shirt to cool off. The house was thirty degrees warmer than outside.
“I can’t do it,” she moaned again.
“Nonsense. Have you eaten?”
She shook her head.
“Cereal and an apple?”
She shrugged.
“Wren bought more peanut butter,” I said in an effort to tempt her.
“Come on, where’s my sunshine girl?”
“Dead.”
I laughed. She sounded like a petulant five-year-old. I poured two bowls of cereal and sliced the apple in silence. She didn’t move when I set
everything in front of her, so I peeked in from the side.
“Leave me alone,” she grumped.
“Sit up and eat.” I slid into the seat next to her and took a bite of cereal.
“What do you have to do today?”
“Sleep.”
I clanked her bowl with my spoon. “Sit up,” I snapped. “Now. Eat.”
She jerked upright like a marionette. Her blue eyes were wide with surprise, but with dark smudges underneath.
“I mean it,” I said. “Eat.”
“Yes, sir.” She picked up her spoon.
Wren shuffled in. She grinned at our little scene of domesticity. Then she communed with Mr. Coffee and opened a Coke for herself.
“What’re y’all up to today?” she asked.
“Pep talk and then working on her project,” I said.
“What do you have left to do?”
“If I had to guess, take the mold apart, clean it up, and get ready to pour the final statue.”
Christy nodded glumly around a mouthful of cereal.
“Want us to bring you lunch?” Wren asked.
“And maybe dinner,” I said. “Just in case.”
She nodded and left with a wave.
Christy was almost human by the time she finished her apple.
“There’s my pretty girl,” I said cheerfully.
She smiled with genuine warmth, although I could still see the tiredness behind it.
“Another apple?”
“Yes, please.”
I returned a minute later and set the halves on her plate. Then I sat and grinned at her.
“What?”
I held up my finger with a dab of peanut butter on it. “Oops. How’d that happen?”
She rolled her eyes but still grinned.
“You want it?”
Her nostrils flared as she closed her eyes and parted her lips. She sucked my finger until the peanut butter was gone. Then she swirled her tongue around it. I let her keep going for almost a minute more, until the little head
threatened to tear through my sweatpants. I reluctantly withdrew my finger from her mouth.
She opened her eyes slowly, almost dreamily.
“I’ll let you do it for real when you’re ready.”
“I told you—”
“And I told you, it’s gonna happen long before then.”
She blushed and looked down.
“Now,” I said, all business, “finish your apple and let’s go shower.
Separately. For now.”
“Okay.”
I set our dishes in the sink and ushered her upstairs, where I left her and tramped up to the third floor bathroom. I didn’t get any hot water, big surprise, but I hadn’t really expected any. I dried off and idly planned an additional water heater in the attic. Add it to the list, I thought as I wrapped the towel around my waist and headed down.