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“It must be connected to your meeting later,” she says, her hands resting on my arms. “Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know,” I say, hating myself for not being able to share everything with her.
“You’ll let me know what happens, right?”
“I’d need your cell number for that.”
“Mycellnumber?”
Her expression turns to ash. She looks at me like I’ve just made the world’s sickest joke. Then I get it—cell, as in prison. That’s where her mind has gone straightaway, but then she laughs awkwardly, realizing her mistake. “Oh, my phone number. Yeah. Sure. Okay.”
She reads out her phone number as I type it into my phone.
“I can swing by later,” I tell her, “to check on you.”
She smiles fleetingly but can’t hide the concern in her eyes. “Yeah, okay. What are your plans for the day?”
Insanely, a blush presses against my cheeks. I can feel it like I’m some goddamn schoolboy.
“What’s wrong?” she asks a moment later. “What did I say?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Jamie.”
She tilts her head, staring at me just like a wife would. She looks at me as if to say,You know you can’t play those games with me. You know you can’t hide anything from me.
“I’ll be looking for work. I need a job. I need to earn money. Not being able to earn a wage eats away at a man.”
“You’ll find something,” she says. “What do youwantto do?”
“Publish my novels,” I tell her, “but in the meantime, I’ve got to live in reality. I’ll keep pushing today.”
“I could always le—”
Lend.
“Don’t say that,” I snap. “You need your money. I’d never borrow from you.”
I don’t mean for this to come out so aggressively, but the idea of borrowing from my woman, the womanI’mgoing to support one day…
“I was just trying to help,” she says softly.
“If I’m going to be a man worthy of you, Lucy, I need to make my own way.”
She flinches. I’ve gone too far. I’ve said too much.
“Anyway,” I drain the coffee and rise to my feet, “I should let you get going.”
“Uh, yeah.”
She glances at me, then places her mug down and walks toward the door.
* * *
The diner is on the waterfront. It’s a rundown place that never sees much business. It sits alone at the end of a row of foreclosed houses, boards over the windows and doors. The lights flicker as I enter. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the kid again, the one who was on the skateboard yesterday.
He’s tied his greasy blond hair up into a top knot. He’s chewing gum aggressively as I walk across the diner and sit opposite him. I can’t see any staff members. It’s empty, apart from us, but the lights are on, and the machines are humming behind the counter.
