Page 8 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

Lincoln lifted his drink, considered the color, and sighed. “This isn’t a good whiskey,” he said.

“It came out of a bottle labeled whiskey.” I turned my glass once on the coaster. “And you picked the hotel.”

“I picked it by its proximity to the conference center and the university.” He ran his hand through his silver-streaked beard.

Lincoln was broader through the shoulders than me, with deeper lines at the corners of his eyes. Silver streaks ran through his beard and glistened at his temples. He was still handsome.

I had silver at my temples too. But where he called it distinguished, I called it evidence that we were still omegaless and increasingly unlikely to find her as we aged.

Outside the windows, headlights dragged white smears across the wet pavement. Inside, the bar glowed low and gold, all dark wood and brass lamps and rich tourists.

Lincoln stretched one arm along the back of the booth. “One more week.”

“Then back to London.”

“Where nobody asks me to eat soup out of bread.”

I laughed. “Nobody asked you.”

“The waiter recommended it.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

I took a sip of my whiskey and let the burn sit on my tongue.

Lincoln watched me over the rim of his glass, his face changing. “We should go by the old place before we leave,” he said.

“Why?”

“To look at it.” He placed his glass on the coaster.

“It’s a building.”

“It was our building.”

“Not ours. It was a lease.”

He looked at me with open pity. “Christ, Hud. Remind me never to ask you for a wedding speech.”

“I’ve written three excellent wedding speeches.”

“You once congratulated a bride on her impressive compatibility with the groom.”

“They’re both accountants and still married.” I set my glass down. “The bakery’s a phone shop now.”

“She was happy there.”

“She wasn’t happy with us.” It came out harder than I intended.

“You can say her name.”

“I’m permitted to do a great many things I don’t do.”

“But you won’t.”

“She left us for a man with more houses.” I turned the glass on the coaster. “More money.”

“You’ve said that before. But it was more than houses and money.”