Page 44 of Raff
“Luckily for you, it’s already in the itinerary,” I said as she cleaned up the beads and I ordered dessert.
“Do I get to know, or is it a secret?”
“We should be hitting San Antonio tomorrow. We can do the River Walk. Though I doubt we will do the whole thing.”
“Why not?”
“It’s fifteen miles. But we can walk the part that runs through downtown. That’s only maybe an hour and a half if we meander.”
“If we get there early enough, I have faith that we could do the whole thing,” she said, making her way toward the bed and bringing up the menu of movies. “That would be, what, four hours? Five, maybe? Then we should still have time to hit the hotel, shower, and check out the shops and have dinner.”
I toed out of my shoes and climbed up on the other side of the bed. “Starting to like this whole road trip thing, huh?”
“It’s not like I’m likely to be in the area again. Might as well enjoy the whole walk. Especially when we are spending so much time sitting in the car. Don’t you try to stay active on stops?”
“I accidentally joined a marathon once. Ran that shit in jeans and old sneakers. Came in second-to-last. The only person behind me was an eighty-year-old woman.”
“But you finished. That’s what counts. How does one accidentally join a race?”
“The woman at the sign-up table—”
“Enough said.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Did you order the coffee already?”
“Don’t worry. I made yours decaf.” At her pinched brows, I said, “You mentioned that coffee too close to bed gives you restless sleep.”
“Is there anything I’ve said that you haven’t committed to memory?”
“Won’t lie. I zoned out a little bit when you started to explain how to cook books. Math has never been my strong suit.”
“No? What’d you like in school?”
“The cheerleaders, mostly. The drama club girls. Band geeks. The intense goth girls…”
“An equal opportunity manwhore even back in the day.”
“I know my strengths.”
“Do you ever think about settling down now that your brother has? And a lot of the other guys in the club?”
“Yeah, I think about it.” But mostly only when I linked her to that future. I’d tried with other women—placing them in the spot I usually reserved for Lula. I could never get past that part. No houses together. No babies. No growing old, sitting on rocking chairs on the front porch, dating ourselves by saying shit like, ‘I remember when all this used to be empty desert.’
“And?”
“And… I think that shit happens on its own.”
“Like… fate?”
“Oh, pretty thing, I hear that snark. You don’t believe in fate?”
“I believe in… hard work. And results.”
“You think you can hard work yourself to a happy marriage?”
“A marriage is hard work.”
“Building a life and a family might be difficult, but I think the love part should be easy, don’t you?”
That got a shrug out of her.
