Page 17 of A Smooth Operator

"I'm sorry about the nickname that I almost used," he apologized.

That was not a nickname. It was a humiliating putdown. The fact that he couldn't see that meant he was just as big of a jackass as Tommy.

We walked on, the trail winding deeper into the forest, away from the river.

"I really am sorry, Echo," he tried again.

I couldn't say: I forgive you because I didn't. And I couldn't say, that's alright because it wasn't. So, the only course of action left in front of me was to change the topic. "How often do you come here?"

I thought he'd argue the point of his apology, but he let it go. "Once a month at least. You?"

"Same, sometimes more. Depends upon how it's going."

"Speaking of how things are going, my father said you're all but ready to cure cancer."

"I highly doubt he'd say that because we're nowhere close to curing it, but we're getting better at managing it. I am, right now, working with Martin on some promising gene therapy research for cervical cancer. It’s exciting, but it’s also a lot of pressure.”

Remi raised an eyebrow. “Pressure?”

I nodded. “If we succeed, this could be groundbreaking for treatment. But if we fail,” I inhaled the fresh forest air, “which we probably will, it's going to be hard.”

"How often do you fail?"

I smiled wanly. "In my line of work? All the time. Out of maybe ten thousand attempts, one comes close to succeeding. Everything is an experiment. You keep learning and changing the parameters and variables as you go."

He gave a sympathetic nod, his voice dropping to a gentler tone. “Uncle Austin said something similar about learning and growing when I told him I was going to open a nightclub. Everyone else said another one and warned me that I'd fail. He said, you keep trying new things until you run out of money and/or energy—and even then, you don't fail; you take what you learned and work on something new.”

We reached a small clearing overlooking the bluff, where the river meandered far below. The trees framed the view like a picturesque painting. I stretched my hamstrings by pulling my ankle up to my ass.

"I like your Uncle Austin. I met him a couple of times at y'all's place. He told me a story about him and BB King."

Remi took a seat on a fallen log. "He has a keen eye for music and hospitality."

I sat next to him on the log, resting my chin on the palm of my hands. "I went to your midtown restaurant a couple of months ago."

He grinned broadly. "You went to Remi's?"

I had. How could I not? It was with a few colleagues from the lab. We were celebrating a colleague who had published a peer-reviewed paper.

"What did you think?" he asked excitedly.

"I really liked it. Very down to earth and still classy. The food was amazing."

"Thanks. Have you been to De La Mer?"

That was his seafood restaurant in Germantown, which was a bit too high-end for my budget. I was not keen on throwing two hundred plus dollars on a prix fixe French meal.

"Not yet."

"You should go," he suggested. "You know what, I'll take you."

"Why would you do that?" Shut up, woman, just say yes. Remi Drake wants to take you out for dinner! Hell has finally frozen over.

"To say thank you for holding my hand right after I saw my girlfriend have sex with my friend. Fuck, I can't believe she did that." He ran a hand over his face. "I can't believe he did."

I couldn't help it. I put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry it hurts you."

"It's just so ugly. I'm no virgin," he paused when I scoffed, "I like sex, Echo, and I have a lot of it with a variety of partners. But what I don't do is lie. If I tell a woman we're exclusive, then we are. If we're not, I have no problem saying that. Marina wanted the exclusivity, demanded it, and I gave it—I wanted to. So, in some ways, this feels like a deeper betrayal, as if she expected my loyalty without ever intending to offer the same in return."

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