“The one you used to give me before I’d ask what was going on.”
“Nothing to report.” I leaned back in my chair.
Claire waited.
Unfortunately, she was very good at waiting.
Finally, I sighed. “There’s a guy.”
Claire nodded. “Okay.” Then she frowned. “Wait.” Her eyes widened. “Guy?”
“Yes.”
“As in man?”
“That would be the implication, yes.”
“So what’s the problem with this guy?”
I looked down at my coffee. There it was, the question I couldn’t answer.
“I don’t know.” For a moment I watched steam curl upward from the cup. “I keep catching glimpses of who he is.”
Claire’s expression softened.
“And then he disappears again. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on him, something doesn’t fit.”
“Such as?”
I hesitated.
Claire had always possessed an almost supernatural ability to sit quietly until people filled the silence.
I filled it for more than five minutes. When I stopped long enough to drink my coffee, she went quiet.
Yeah, that right there was a red flag.
“You know what’s interesting?”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Not particularly.”
“You haven’t told me a single thing about what he looks like.”
I frowned. “Why would I?”
“Because that’s usually the first thing people mention when they’re interested in someone.”
“I’m not interested in him.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m not.”
Claire ignored that. “You’ve spent the last five minutes talking about what he doesn’t say.” She stirred her coffee. “You keep describing moments.”
“What does that mean?”
“Most people describe a person.” She pointed her spoon at me. “You describe the spaces between things.”
