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“No, the other girl I’m talking to.” She smiled. “Yeah, you.”
“Sure,” I agreed, and smiled back. We chose where to go, a place that was close because we were both starving. “Just so you know, though, there’s someone following me. Also not in a creepy way, but for protection. If you see him, don’t worry about it.”
“You have to have a bodyguard?” She was horrified. “Jesus! That ex of yours was worse than I knew.” She grabbed my hand. “I’m glad then. I’m glad about Bowie. I was pretty pissed at you, but I’m not anymore.”
He called me after I left the restaurant. “Hi, honey. You on your way home?” he asked but then before I could answer, he added, “I’m not keeping track of you. I was just curious.”
“I know that.” I told him about my dinner and the next question he had was if my foot hurt, which I minimized a little. There was no need for him to worry about it. “I was thinking I might go over to the cottage.”
“Right now? Why don’t you wait for me and we can go together?”
“I could wait,” I agreed. “I wanted to get my mom’s Dames uniform, from when she used to be a cheerleader. I was thinking that if you really insist on dressing as a Woodsmen player for Halloween, I might as well go as a Dame, too.”
“I bet you’ll look just like her.”
“I’m not really, though,” I said. “I’m not like her, deep down, because I wouldn’t run out on anyone. Not my kids or my husband, not on the people I love.”
“I know that,” Bowie said. “You have the fundamentals.”
“What?”
“It’s like football. Like dance and carpentry,” he said. “You start by getting the basics right and you’re good from the ground up. From your heart, all the way out.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s the truth.”
“Like at the cottage. Fundamentally, it’s good, right? I mean, its location on the lake is perfect, and the way it fits onto the shoreline seems so natural. You can see the sunset over the hills every evening. Maybe some of it is a little rotten, but the basics are good.”
“That’s true. It’s a great place.”
“I’m glad you said that, because I thought maybe we could live there. Maybe,” I rushed on. “I know it needs work. I know that the ceiling is too short for you to feel comfortable under, and there’s no bedroom big enough to fit a mattress that would fit you, let alone the two of us when we want to be busy on it. Also, you can hardly squeeze through the kitchen…you know, the more I say, the less I think the cottage is basically good.”
“No, I think that it’s something to think about.” He laughed. “It’s a lot of mental work on my part.”
“Don’t overdo it the night before a game,” I advised, and he laughed again.
“You know what I’ve really been thinking about?” Bowie asked me. “I’ve been remembering what we did last night.”
I swallowed. The car, which had been chilly with the heat slowly creaking on, now seemed plenty warm enough. “I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
He shared his ideas, and it turned out our minds had been running along the same lines. I even forgot to tell him about my meeting with Valerie because I was so interested in all the things he had to say and when we hung up, I was red and I could hear him panting.
It would be a long night alone, but I was looking forward to seeing him again, seeing all of him. And talking to him a lot, if we could use our mouths for conversation and not just…other activities. I had things that I needed to tell him, stuff I hadn’t wanted to say over the phone.
Yeah, it was going to be a long night.
Chapter 14
It was longer than I thought.
Sometime in the darkness after I’d finally fallen asleep alone, my phone rang. I startled awake with a gasp, sitting bolt upright and grabbing for the switch on the lamp.
“Dad? What? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” he told me, “but that woman hasn’t stopped calling me and you better make her quit.”
“What woman?” I looked at the time. “It’s two in the morning. Why are you telling me this?”
