Page 44 of Rhodes

The bedroom is cool after the close little box of that hallway. The vent breathes down on me, and my arms prickle with cool air blowing down. I stand there a second in the dark, then cross to the bed and drop down on the edge of it.

My phone's face-down on the nightstand where I left it. I pick it up. The screen throws its blue-white light up into my face, too bright, and I squint at it. Jo's text sits there from an hour ago.

fuzzies or no fuzzies???

I thumb out the answer without having to think about it.

no fuzzies. none. zero.

The three dots start up right away. She was waiting.

NOOO he's so cute tho

he is cute! he's genuinely lovely. good guy. good on the boat. just no.

just no???

just no. can't explain it. there's nothing there. i'd know by now.

fair.

yup. going to bed. love you

love you. sleep well.

I set the phone down, screen first, and the room goes dark again.

That's done, then, and it was clean. Trey's a nice man, and there was nothing under it, not one flicker. I'm not going to sit here and manufacture a reason to feel bad about a physiological fact. I gave him a fair dinner and an honest verdict, and that's more than most people get from me.

I lie back and pull the sheet up and stare at the ceiling I can't quite see.

Somewhere under my ribs, that low pull is still going. After the entire night, that doesn’t show up until after he’s gone. What the hell?

THIRTEEN

Rhodes

The Test Patch: New treatments are tried first in a small square somewhere the eye will not travel, so that a failure costs nothing. The trade calls it prudence. It is also the easiest way to find out what a thing will do.

I come into the kitchen with the truck keys already hooked on one finger.

Deuce bailed on me an hour ago, some story about a doubleheader he swears nobody told him about, and that's fine. I don't need him to ride. The new pipe is on, and I want to hear it open up on a real stretch, not the driveway. I'll go alone, the way I like it anyway.

I don't see her until I'm halfway across the kitchen. She's at the table with her bare feet up on the next chair, ankles crossed.

She’s wearing sleep shorts so short the gray hoodie eats them. Her hair's going every direction, and there's coffee steaming next to a paperback with its cover half torn off. Two fingers hold her place while she reads, not looking at me yet.

For a second, I take in the whole picture. Her bare legs are stretched out in front of her, her hair is wild, and her coffee and paperback sit beside her. Tallulah is folded up in my kitchen on a Sunday like she has been doing it forever.

My chest tightens, and heat drops low in my stomach before I can get ahead of it.

Nothing. It's nothing.

She looks up. "Where are you off to?"

"Our cabin out in Slidell." I lift the keys. "You remember our land out there, right?"

"Of course I do. I used to love going out there for those parties your dad used to throw when I was in high school. They were epic."