Page 13 of Triple Play

Felix mutters something that sounds suspiciously like figures. I don’t know why he’s suddenly uptight about money. He always came to the club with neat stacks of bills.

Either way, his bag arrives a few minutes later: a huge travel-scarred blue suitcase that he hefts one-handed like he’s making a point.

More bags come off. More owners claim them with irritated huffs and the occasional commiseration about shitty New England weather. Wouldn’t want to live anywhere else is the common refrain.

I watch for my bag. And watch. And watch. Nothing appears. Next to me, Blake is doing something on his phone—possibly checking traffic.

“Sorry,” I say, not for the first time. This isn’t exactly showing him I know how to travel. I didn’t even know about the orange tag things until they put one on his bag when we checked in. A knot forms in my stomach like I’m failing an audition—I haven’t felt this way in years. In six very specific years.

Blake presses a kiss to my hair. “It’s fine.” But when he rechecks his phone, a tiny line forms between his coppery blond eyebrows. So it’s not fine.

Felix is standing on my other side. Blake’s it’s fine makes his nostril twitch. I forgot he did that: how big, sweet Felix always knew when someone was lying.

Do not call him on it. I smile. Tension lines my jaw. I point myself at the baggage claim with renewed purpose. And wait.

At minute five, I glance over at Blake, who shoots me a tight smile.

At minute ten, I start to worry that my bag has already been loaded onto the plane.

At minute fifteen, Blake gets a call that he answers with a clipped “I’ll call you back” that softens into an “I promise.” When I look at him in question, he shakes his head despairingly, not at me but at the call. We’ve only been seeing each other for the month he’s been in Boston, but it’s not the first time he’s gotten a call he didn’t want to explain.

At minute twenty, I’m dividing my attention between the baggage claim and looking out the high windows at the seal-fur-white sky. The snow isn’t arriving for a little while, but New England weather always has that feeling, like a line of snow is about to come barreling down on the city.

Next to me, Felix shifts his weight from foot to foot. It’s possible he’s just impatient to get moving. Or he’s eager to tell Blake about how he knows me. I don’t know that Felix would—but guys have done less to ingratiate themselves to someone else richer and more influential.

“You need to go home to get the car, right?” Felix asks me. It’s an overly familiar question for someone he’s supposedly just met. He seems to realize his mistake. “I mean, you could pack something else if you had to?”

The problem is I can’t—I’d pack other clothes if I had more to pack. All of my expensive spring-slash-summer clothes are currently in that suitcase.

“No.” Blake slides his phone back in his pocket. “If we haven’t left the airport, neither has her luggage.”

“I’ll go ask at the counter.” My heart sinks at the snaking line of customers all waiting to do the same thing. “I can take care of it.

“No,” Blake says again, this time more definitively. He rolls his sleek hard-sided suitcase over to me and adjusts the duffel bag he piled on top to stabilize it. “You mind watching this for me? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Sure,” I laugh. “What’re you going to do?”

“I’m told I can be very persuasive under the right circumstances.” Then he kisses my cheek and takes off, cutting a path through the crowd.

Leaving me with Felix.

“What do you think he’s doing over there—?” Felix begins. He stops when I whirl around to face him.

I tap a fingernail against his chest.

He moves back, raises his hands in self-defense.

“He can’t know,” I whisper fiercely.

Felix’s eyebrows climb toward the brim of his hat. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of?—”

I cut him off again. “I am not ashamed.” Which I’m not. Shame would be simple. I liked dancing. I liked the money and the attention and making friends with the other girls. I even liked having regular customers. Like Felix. Who I liked as more than a customer.

“I’m not ashamed,” I repeat when it’s clear Felix doesn’t believe me. “I just don’t want Blake to know about it.”

I’m greeted by more disbelief: in the set of Felix’s shoulders, in the slightly downturned edge of his lips.

I tap my finger against his chest again, softer this time. A reminder that we’re standing in a sea of people. That at some point Blake will be back. “Have you ever had some part of you,” I say, “that you were proud of but you weren’t in a rush to tell other people about?”

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