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He tapped his finger over the photo in the catalog, an incomplete Acheroraptor skull. It was small enough to fit into the palm of his hand.
Around him the auction was starting up. Seb made a few bids on the T. rex skull, and then dropped out.
Theo leaned over to him. “Giving up already?”
“I’m not sure Louisa would like it,” Seb answered in a stage whisper. “I thought the smaller ones looked rather cute.”
A sane person would have argued that those little fossil lumps were a long way from being cute. But this wasn’t the first time Theo had heard someone call a fossil cute. “Yes,” he acknowledged with a resigned sigh. “I suppose they are.”
When, a few minutes later, the Acheroraptor skull came up, Theo placed a bid. There were many good reasons to buy it, and putting in an early bid was hardly a big commitment.
Except there were more people bidding than Theo had expected, and the price rose fast. He had to keep bidding, just to keep his options open.
The bidding was at two hundred thousand dollars, and although Theo raised his hand to match the bid, he moved slowly.
“You’ve got two competitors. One bidder on the phone at the front,” Seb told him, jutting his chin in that direction. Theo glared over at a young man in a badly fitted suit, a phone pressed to his ear. “And there’s a woman in green in the back row.”
Theo looked back and saw who Seb was talking about. An older woman who looked rather out of place in a faded green sweatshirt. He was not going to let Mena’s fossil be bought byher.
The bidding was getting higher, when, all at once, both of his rivals stopped and Theo found himself with the winning bid.
“Congratulations,” Seb said warmly, “Let’s go and pay for your prize.”
Theo nodded and followed Sen into the service area. As he paid, he felt wrong-footed. He’d listened to Seb too much, and got swept up in his silly romantic notions and now he’d spent a frankly ridiculous amount on a fossil that he had absolutely no use for.
Unlike Seb, he didn’t have a girlfriend to package it up and send it to. He certainly couldn’t send it to Mena in Alberta, she’d made it clear she didn’t want to hear from him again.
The whole auction had been a kind of madness that he couldn’t explain.
“What’s the name of that museum?”
“Museum?” Seb asked, distracted as he watched the auctioneers pack up the various items that had already sold.
“The one your asset manager likes.”
“Oh, right,” Seb smiled awkwardly, “I have the card of one of the curators.”
He took it out of his pocket and handed it to Theo, who folded it in half and slipped it in his pocket, not sparing a glance at the writing on it.
His ridiculous impulse purchase was delivered to his house the next day. Theo didn’t open the box. Instead it sat in the corner of his home office while he sat at his desk, stewing over it.
Theo thought he’d moved on. It was true that he hadn’t been interested in anyone else since she left him. How could he be, when he was still in love with Mena? But she didn’t feel the same, and he’d thought that he’d got over it, it was a wound that had healed.
Except, at the slightest reminder of her, he’d buckled. How quickly he’d leapt at an opportunity to buy her a gift! He’d just spent an outrageous amount of money on a gift that he couldn’t bear to give her.
Perhaps he could find a way to give it to her? What about sending it to her anonymously?
He steepled his fingers in front of his face. Sending it to her anonymously would be a bizarre thing to do. Would she be so happy to own an Acheroraptor skull that she’d overlook the weirdness of how she’d received it? No, she’d know immediately it was from him. And she’d be angry with him.
She was beautiful when she was angry.
He shook his head, not letting himself be distracted. No, the only sensible thing to do was get rid of the fossil. He’d loan it to a museum.
The one that Seb had mentioned sounded like a good option, if he could find the card Seb had given him. Where had he put it?
The suit he’d been wearing at the auction had already been dry cleaned, and the contents of the pockets emptied into a littledish by the front door. He unfolded the business card of the museum curator.
He read the name written on the card, and then re-read it. He was hallucinating, it didn’t make any sense, because it was Mena’s name! That couldn’t be right!
