Page 38 of The No Try Zone
I glance at Sam, who makes a point of not looking at me as we each make our way inside.
“Could you two set the table?” Elodie asks.
“I’ve got it,” Sam says, cutting a look at me. “Head back out with the guys, Coach.”
Coach? She’s never called me that. I don’t think I like it. At all. “Happy to help,” I tell Elodie with a smile.
“Great!” she chirps, clasping her hands together and sounding far more pleased than the request really needs.
“Elodie.” Sam’s voice has a hint of warning to it.
“What?” she asks innocently.
“Elle.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elodie sing-songs, then leaves the kitchen with a sweet smile at me.
Sam mutters something under her breath as she watches Elodie go, then glares at me. “Leave.”
I straighten. I might puff my chest out just a bit. Not a lot, but…a bit. Just, you know, to see if she reacts.
She does. It’s subtle as hell, but I’m so tuned into her that I catch the too-hard swallow she makes.
“I think I’ll stay,” I respond, turning and making a show of looking at the closed cabinets. “Do you know where anything is?”
“There’s no table.”
I swing back. “What do you mean, there’s no table?”
With a roll of her eyes, she gestures at the island in the middle of the kitchen. “That’s their table.”
“Then what –”
She cocks her head at me. “What do you think?”
I study her. “I…have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind. Listen, we need to pull all the cutlery and plates out and get them set up on the island. Then we need to pull the tables and chairs from the garage and set those up in that big empty room over there.”
I look where she indicates, and sure enough, it’s a massive empty space, tailor-made for a big table. That doesn’t exist, apparently. “That’s…really empty.”
She chuckles. “Yeah. Elodie wants a very specific table, and Ansel has decided he wants to build it for her.”
“Can he do that?”
“Guess he’s going to figure it out. You know, ‘if he wanted to, he would.’” She narrows her eyes at me as she says it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you wanted to get this divorce handled, it would be done already,” she hisses.
I smirk as I move to stand beside her. “I wondered how long it’d take you to bring that up.”
She jerks open the silverware drawer and grabs a handful of knives. “Say that again, only turn toward me so that I can stab you with these.”
“Oh, come on,” I say with a laugh. “Death by butter knives?”
“Don’t test me, Coach.”
