Page 120 of Unmanageable

“It’s just… seeing her standing there like that,” she whispers. “I’m just so deeply embarrassed, Cash. I felt so small, and I hated that you had to see it. I took all that sickness and threw it right at you because you’re safe, and that’s so unfair to you.”

The knot in my chest relaxes, the hurt shifting back into that protective ache that has been ruling my life since she became my agent.

“I love your jokes,” she continues, her voice gaining a tiny bit of strength. “And I love your… your unhinged plans and the mimes and everything. I do. It’s the only reason I haven’t lost my mind between Boston and here. I just… I don’t know if I’m the best company right now, Cash.”

I reach across the console, my hand coming down over the back of her neck, my fingers tangling deep into her red hair as I pull her gently toward me. She doesn’t fight it.

She leans across the console, burying her face straight into the hollow of my shoulder, her hands gripping the fabric of my t-shirt.

“You’re the only company I want, Sharky,” I rumble into her hair, my chin resting against the top of her head as I hold her tight against my chest. “Even when you’re a pain in the ass. Especially when you’re a pain in the ass.”

“She calls me by my middle name,” Scottie mutters into my shirt. “Nobody has called me that since I was eighteen. It feels like a different person. A worse person.”

“I know who you are. You’re Scottie. My Scottie-girl,” I say. “You’re the girl who threw forty checkers across a room because she couldn’t handle losing a game.”

She lets out a soft, wet breath that feels warm against my skin. “The coach is still going to be pissed about the skate, Cash.”

“Let him be pissed,” I smirk, my lips brushing the edge of her ear. “I’ll give him twenty saves tomorrow and he’ll forget all about it. Now, are we going to go inside this thrift store and buy some terrible polyester, or do I have to fight this invisible wall by myself?”

Scottie lets out a weak, genuine laugh against my shoulder, finally lifting her head to look at me. Her face is still tired, the shadows under her eyes dark in the gray afternoon light, but the steel wire under her skin has slackened.

“If we’re doing this, O’Connell,” she says, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, “you’re wearing the worst thing in the building. I’m talking nineteen-seventies upholstery.”

“Deal,” I say, reaching past her to unlock the passenger door. “Get your coat, Bernadette. The puffins are waiting.”

***

“You look ridiculous.”

“Gary Potts doesn’t care about your metropolitan fashion standards, Bernadette,” I say, adjusting the collar of the yellow shirt. “Gary is a man of the earth. He tracks the tufted puffin. He has a pension from the municipal water district and a collection of stamps.”

“Is that who we are?” She steps closer, looking at our reflection in the shop’s dusty mirror. “Gary and Bernadette?”

“Yeah,” I say, catching her eye in the glass. “And we don’t talk to the locals. We’re mimes on the weekend. We communicate through the medium of disappointment.”

She lets out a real laugh at that, and for a second, the light in the shop seems to brighten.

We buy our clothes and walk down toward the old wooden dock. The marina is dead quiet, the lake a flat gray that matches the clouds perfectly.

Scottie has her hands buried deep in the corduroy pockets of the jacket she picked up, her red hair blowing around the frame of those big, absurd sunglasses.

A guy in a delivery uniform walks past us with a clipboard.

I stop dead on the wet wood, hold my hands out, and pretend to flatten my palms against an invisible pane of glass, my face going totally serious as I mime being trapped.

The delivery guy stops, looks at my short, neon plaid trousers, looks at her big, oversized frames, shakes his head, and keeps walking, muttering something about tourists.

“You’re an idiot,” she says softly, leaning into my side.

“I’m a researcher, Bernadette,” I rumble, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to shield her from the damp wind. “Let’s go get some food. Gary’s buying.”

***

We find a small shack at the end of the dock. It’s tiny—just three booths and a counter. We sit in the corner, my knees crowding hers under the small laminate table.

Scottie pushes the sunglasses up into her hair. Her eyes are still a little tired, but the raw look from the grocery store has cleared out.

She looks out the window at the gray water, her chin resting in her hand, watching the rhythmic bobbing of a small fishing boat.