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“You know,” he said. “I could really get used to coming here in the afternoon and enjoying air conditioning and ice cream.”
“If you buy your own ice cream bars,” she said. “You can enjoy your own air conditioning and ice cream next door.” She gave him a pointed look, to which he laughed. Emma liked that he was carefree and casual, and she wondered if she’d experienced the same happiness that spilled from Ted at all in the past decade.
She pretended. She put on the happy face. She painted on her pretty makeup and her smile. But she wasn’t sure she was truly happy. Not the same way Ted seemed to be.
“Yeah, but it’s better here,” Ted said, smiling at her.
She unwrapped her ice cream bar and kept her eyes on it. “I was Robert Knight’s girlfriend a while back.”
“How far back?”
“Oh, let’s see,” she said as if she didn’t know exactly when she’d met him and they’d started dating. “Eleven or twelve years ago.”
Ted nodded. “Where’d you meet him?”
She swallowed, because she didn’t want to say that. “I’ve never talked to a lawyer. I feel like Ineeda lawyer.”
Ted shook his head and took another bite of his ice cream bar. “I’m not a lawyer anymore, Emma.”
“No?”
“No, ma’am. I got disbarred when I got convicted.” He glanced at her, and her heart positively hurt for him. A flash of pain crossed his face, but it didn’t stay long. “It was a good run, and I’m okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He finished his ice cream bar. “That’s it? You were Robert Knight’s girlfriend?”
“Yes,” she said.
“How long?”
“Five or six months?” she said, making it sound like a question. It had actually been eight months, as they’d dated for almost the entire school year.
“Did you know he was in a crime family?”
“Not at first,” she said. “But yes, I eventually realized how he made his money.”
“And how was he doing that when you were with him?”
“It was my understanding that he was doing something fraudulent with real estate.”
“Really?” Ted looked at him. “It wasn’t drugs?”
“His brother ran that, I think,” Emma said, her mind spiraling into a dark corner that she didn’t let herself visit very often.
“Larry?”
“Yeah,” Emma said. “Larry. I only met him once, and he was…creepy.” She shuddered and took a bite of her ice cream.
“I’ll bet,” Ted said.
“What were you guys investigating them for?”
“Everything you can think of,” Ted said. “No one ever talked to you?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, do not ‘sir’ me,” Ted said, chuckling. “I’m not your father.”
