They didn’t always see eye to eye, but Lee knew that his girlfriend complemented him in ways he needed. Without her, he’d eat like a frat boy. Marcelle didn’t cook all that much, but she kept him from eating pizza every night. And while he was a dreamer, she was a planner. When he’d bought the house on Dunreath, Lee had talked about how he’d one day like to plant crepe myrtles in the front yard. Marcelle had hired a landscaper, and the job had been done two weeks later.
She was efficient. She was driven. And she loved him.
“She loves me… I think,” Lee said aloud. Victor picked up his head, regarded Lee for a moment, and dropped it again, looking unimpressed. “And I love her… I mean, we might not say the words every day, but that doesn’t change the facts, right?”
Victor didn’t respond, and Lee paddled on, working harder when the current picked up as the river bent northwest behind Alice Drive. The houses along the river here were older than those he’d just passed in River Ranch, and the trees and brush were taller, growing thicker and throwing their shadows along the bank.
“Wren probably hates me,” he told the dog, breaking a sweat now as he braced his whole body to move the kayak against the current. “She’d have to. Wouldn’t she? I mean, she wasn’t happy at all to see me last night, and I don’t think that kiss made her any happier. She couldn’t even look at me after.”
He fought the current again as the river snaked south around Beaullieu Drive to his left.
“And why should it matter if she hates me? We’ve spent — what? A total of two whole hours together? More if you count the part when she was unconscious.”
Despite his words, Lee knew that with someone like Wren, the amount of time didn’t really matter all that much. She was the kind of person who could leave a mark with just one meeting. Even if he’d never seen her again after her surgery, Lee would have remembered her. Vividly.
The effort to make the bend around Broadmoor cleared his mind, and he was breathing hard by the time the Ambassador Caffery Bridge came into view. To get a good workout and earn his snack, Lee made himself race toward it, burning lactose in his abs, traps, and shoulders. Even his legs started to burn as he braced himself in the kayak. The vessel flew over the water, and the breeze buffeted Victor’s soft curls.
Breathless and streaming sweat, Lee turned around to head downstream and rested the paddle across his lap. His body felt the welcome ease after exertion, and he’d worked up an appetite. He let them drift while he took turns popping almonds into his mouth and trying to teach Victor how to sit by offering him treats. The dog caught on quickly, his excitement clear in his eyes as he grasped the game. Lee laughed.
“Marcelle is going to love you.”
“YOU’VE GOT TObe fucking kidding me.”
Lee’s girlfriend glared down at the dog with a look of revulsion. At the sound of her voice, Victor, who sat at Lee’s feet, had the good sense to duck his head and peek up at her under his golden eyebrows. But it didn’t help.
“I thought we talked about this.” Marcelle turned her glare on Lee as he chopped mushrooms for dinner.
Lee tried to swallow his irritation. He’d been in the middle of making chicken marsala when she came in. Clearly, his plan to cushion the blow of the puppy’s arrival with her favorite meal wasn’t going to work.
“Well, I told you I wanted a dog; you listed reasons why we shouldn’t get one, and I refuted all of those reasons,” he said, slipping into debate-mode even as he kept slicing mushrooms. “Marcelle, this is Victor.”
At the sound of his name, Victor stood and wagged. Still, he seemed to know not to approach Marcelle. She ignored him.
“I can’t believe you did that. You didn’t even tell me." Marcelle then took in the dog crate in the corner of the room. Victor’s lead and harness sat coiled on its top. She pointed to them. “You obviously planned this. It wasn’t one of your impulse purchases. How could you not tell me?”
Lee set down the paring knife. “What do you mean, one of my ‘impulse purchases’?”
Marcelle rolled her eyes. “Hello? The jukebox. The second kayak. The Xbox One…”
“I wanted all those things. Iuseall those things.” Lee took a breath and tried to master his voice. “If I can afford them, what’s wrong with buying things I want?”
Marcelle flipped her hair behind her shoulder, ready for battle. “You’re thirty-one years old, and you shop like a little boy. You don’t give any forethought to where something will go or how much upkeep it takes.”
Lee threw up his hands. “What the hell are you talking about? The jukebox goes in the dining room. The kayaks hang up on the porch. The Xbox is under the TV.” He felt his brows draw up in the middle with what he knew was his most condescending expression. “I don’t see a problem here.”
Marcelle unbuttoned her tailored jacket, shucked it off, and flung it over the back of a kitchen chair. Victor hid behind Lee’s legs.
“Every time the jukebox breaks, you have to call that specialty company. Every time you take the kayak out, you get mud on the top of your jeep and on the porch.” Her neck was getting red and splotchy, and her eyes narrowed down to slits. “Every time you get afuckingvideo game, you camp out in front of the TV and surround yourself with dirty dishes for three nights straight.”
“So?Playing video games isfun.” His voice dripped with affected calm. “Maybe you should try it.”
“I’m not twelve!” she shouted. “I don’t collect comic books that take up four bookshelves in the spare bedroom. I don’t buy box sets ofStar Trek, and I don’t play video games.”
Lee grit his teeth even as he felt his face heat. “What’s your point? What does this really have to do with my dog?”
“Leland, when,whenare you going to grow up?”
Lee was struck dumb. He looked at his girlfriend. Really looked at her. The crowding of her brows. Her flared nostrils. The clench in her jaw.
