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I smile, and it feels good. “Did you ever consider giving up biomed, or whatever it is you do in that mad scientist’s lab of yours, so you could go into psych instead?”
“Hey, did we not spend three weeks in Nepal together? Okay, it was a dozen years ago, but I remember that stuff. Mindfulness. Joyfulness. What it means. How to see the truth within yourself.”
“And?”
“And, look at your truth, man. Do you generally know the women you sleep with as people?”
“Yes. Of course I do. Jesus, Coop, you make me sound like some creep who travels from bed to bed.”
“Dude,” Coop says in the patient tones of a father explaining the birds and bees to his seven-year-old son, “of course you know things about them. But nothing in depth. It’s all sex. It’s strictly fun.” He pauses. “And here’s just a wild guess. Bailey doesn’t fit into that it’s strictly fun category. Right?”
I sigh. Everything I know about Bailey assures me that he’s not just right, he’s one hundred percent right.
“On top of which,” he adds, “as we have already established, she’s not just your employee, she’s the one who keeps the wheels from falling off so you can spend your time building houses in the trees.”
“I do not build—”
“Bottom line, O’Malley. You’ll get her into your bed. You’ll have fun. She’ll attach a lot more to it than you will. You’ll hurt her as a woman, and lose her as an assistant. Still sound good?”
No. It sounds like crap. He’s right, and I know it.
The barmaid brings our beers, takes away what’s left of our burgers and replaces them with a bowl of popcorn. Yeah, the popcorn should have arrived long before the burgers, but that’s one of the things about The Attic. The place doesn’t have hard and fast rules, which is good because you need to escape the rules once in while, especially when life is so goddamn full of them.
Like the rule about not sleeping with a woman who works for you. Or the one about not sleeping with a woman who’s never in her life had a relationship with a man and is absolutely sure to put more meaning on the act of sex than you will.
“Shit,” I say.
Coop flashes me a smug look. “Anybody ever tell you you have a way with words?”
I nod. Then I look at him.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Glad to be of help.”
“Yeah. I owe you.”
“Yup. You do. And you’ll still be on the hook even though I’m gonna let you pay for this meal.”
He smiles. I smile. I look at the check, take out my wallet, put a couple of twenties on the table and add an outrageously large tip.
Coop and I head out of the bar. Night has fallen. The weather is cool and crisp, and that’s the same way I feel. Cool, crisp, and in control.
We pause on the sidewalk.
“Dude,” I start to say, “seriously—”
Coop grabs me in a bear hug. I return it.
“Brothers forever,” he says gruffly.
“Forever,” I repeat.
Because that’s how we feel about each other, and I cannot imagine using that particular F-word any other way.
13
And now it’s tomorrow.
