Page 34 of Old Flames

Back in the yard, Vicky called out to Jules. “Come see this gorgeous fur baby!”

Jules left him with an apology. “She’s crazy about cats.”

Her reluctance to leave him was obvious and that alone did away with Leo’s dark thoughts: Hemingway, Francesca’s flat, his lingering sense of displacement, and paradise lost.

He wasn’t alone for long. Matty gripped his elbow and steered him in the opposite direction. “Walk with me. I need advice.”

They wandered to the pool’s edge, the very pool that had cost the author his “last red cent.” The water’s hard flat surface mirrored the sky.

“Hemingway is the blueprint,” Matty said. “He had life figured out. What the fuck am I doing in Massachusetts?”

“Teaching at Boston College,” Leo reminded him.

“Right. That bit.”

“Is that why you dragged me out here? You want to quit and move?”

“If I could afford it,” he said. “But I can’t—at least, not yet.”

“What’s the plan? I’m up for a heist.”

“You’re a good man,” Matty said. “But it won’t come to that. My agent reached out with an offer of the sort that if handled right could change things for me.”

“I’m listening.”

He’d received an offer from a Disney rival to write companion books for future film releases. In the series, an American teen is sent to a British boarding school, the sort where things go bump in the night. It had all the makings of a hit series, which would get him out of the red.

“What do you need my advice for?” Leo said. “Sounds like gold.”

Matty looked uneasy. “Fool’s gold?”

“Why?”

“I’d be selling out.”

“For a solid price.”

Leo was no purist. He wasn’t against selling out. He’d written articles and consulted on projects he had slim to no interest in for a paycheck. However, there was a limit. “If it’s torture, don’t do it.”

Matty kicked a pebble. “It’s not torture.”

“Then sign the contract.”

“I’ll give it a think . . .”

“Sleep on it,” Leo advised.

“I can’t sleep at that drafty inn,” Matty said with a groan. “But enough of that. How are things with Jules? It’s safe to say she doesn’t hate you anymore. I’ve been trying to speak with you all morning. You two are glued together, peas in a pod. And she doesn’t look so . . . tormented anymore. Not when she’s with you, anyway.”

Tormented . . . that was it. Something was tormenting her, and not the momentary freak-out from the ghost tour—something ongoing, unresolved. He had to find out. I’m not in my right mind. Forget the kiss. Well, no, never, but his focus had shifted.

12

By the time Jules reached Vicky, the gorgeous fur baby had taken off.

“Where’d he go?” Vicky wondered, searching for her new feline friend. “He was here a second ago.”

“Was this one particularly cute?” Jules asked. They looked like regular cats to her.