Page 16 of Blind Spot
“Tomato. Garlic. Some of the basil from the pot before it dies.”
“I bought that basil in June,Rook. You said it would die in a week.”
“It has lasted four months. I was wrong.”
“You were wrong with confidence. I kind of like that about you.”
“Noted.”
“I love you,” he said, as he opened the cabinet to pull out plates. He said it that way sometimes. No unneeded fanfare.
“I love you too.”
“How was your afternoon?”
“Quiet.”
“Mine wasn’t.” Varga set plates on the kitchen table. “The kid asked me three questions in seventy minutes.Three.He spent the rest of the time watching me do edge work and nodding. I think I’m being studied, Rook. Like a—like a specimen. A Saskatchewan biologist on skates is studying me.”
“He’s learning.”
“He’s absorbing.It’s not the same.”
“It’s better.”
“You always take his side.”
“He’s not on a side.”
“Everyone is on a side.” He walked over to the stove and sniffed the sauce. “He asked me on the way off the ice if I thought you liked him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you don’t like anyone for the first eighteen months and then you do, and that he was on month two.”
“That’s accurate.”
“I know it’s accurate. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet.”
“You have not been keeping a spreadsheet.”
“Rook. I have a folder on you.”
“You don’t.”
“You don’t know what I have.” Varga sat at the table. “Rafe asked me a fourth question at the end. He asked me what you’d do if he asked you to take him out for a beer.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you’d saynext week, and then it would be next week for six weeks, and then one Thursday in November you’d text him at 4:30 and tell him to meet you somewhere at five, and you’d buy him exactly one beer and ask him three questions, and he’d remember the conversation for the rest of his life.”
I looked at the floor. He was right.
“What did he say to that?” I asked.
“He saidthank you, Lucas.”
“Lucas,” I said.
