Page 23 of Frog

“I do.”

I nodded and waved him over to me.

He ran and leaped and I went down under a hundred and sixty-five pounds of very happy, carved, toned neurosurgeon.

In the car, or Carolyn’s huge-ass boat of an SUV, I stretched out in the back as Cyrus rode shotgun next to his sister.

Since Cy said my boots needed to be resoled—and he was right, they did—we dropped them off on the way, then drove to the mall with me in a pair of rubber galoshes that was all they had at the shoe repair place that we could buy for me to walk back out in. The first order of business was to get me some new footwear.

The boots at the department stores would not make it a week on the range so I passed. But I got a pair of running shoes and a pair of heavy hiking boots because the leather was thick and the sole was sewn on and not glued, which made it more durable. I had left my cowboy hat at Cy’s place, but my head was cold, and I felt naked without it. He got me a wool beanie.

“This is gonna fix things?” I asked him as he wrapped a scarf around my neck and his sister helped me on with a peacoat.

“Yes.” He beamed at me. “You look good. That coat is hot.”

I glowered at him.

“What? It is.”

“It’s a coat,” I grumbled.

“Can I get you dress shoes?”

“No.”

“Just a pair of black lace-ups to keep at my house?”

“No.”

“Please. You’ll need them.”

“For what?”

“I have a dinner to go to while you’re here.”

“I’ll stay home.”

His eyes softened.

“I mean, I’ll stay at your house.”

“You said ‘home’.”

“You know what I meant.”

“It was nice, how it sounded.”

“Oh for crissakes, Cy, you know I would stick around if there was shit I could do in San Francisco, but there ain’t, and I won’t live on you and be a whore!”

“Jesus,” Carolyn gasped.

“Shit,” I muttered because I forgot she was there as well as where I was.

“Letting me take care of you would not make you a whore,” Cy said tightly, his jaw clenched.

“But if I can’t provide for myself, I can’t respect myself. And how can you respect me if I don’t? It won’t work, and you’d come to hate me.”

He shook his head.