Page 35 of Triple Play

When I glance over to Shira to see if she knows what’s up, she’s biting her lip and studying her textbook intensely.

So something is going on. Something that’s making them have very stilted conversation.

She looks up from the textbook page, a bright smudge of highlighter on her cheek. “Lilac being a good girl for you?”

She has the same rasp in her voice as when I woke up last night. Just had a bad dream, she said. Said with strands of hair stuck to her forehead, a certain flush to her cheeks in the half darkness of the room.

I wanted to pull her close to me, to offer comfort—distraction. But that kind of distraction can feel a lot like pressure. The thing about having a lot of money—and at this point in my career, I have a lot of money—is people tend to say yes to you enough that it can be hard to tell when they mean it.

So I give Lilac another pat. “Would music keep you from studying?” I ask.

Shira shakes her head.

“Any requests?”

She thinks for a second. “Whatever you like.” As if she does have an opinion and doesn’t want to impose it on me. Maybe I’ll try to sneak a glance at her Spotify later to see what she likes.

I crane my head back. “Any requests, Paquette?”

“It’s Pah-quette, not packet. Or Felix if that’s easier.”

Felix. What a friend might call him. Someone he tells about stargazing and the farm he clearly loves. About his sister and her wife, said with a challenging look as if I might object. For the barest second, I considered feigning confusion, if only to see what he’d do: curse me out, grip me by the front of my shirt, draw me closer to him…if only to rear back a fist. Instead, I looked up at the universe and made a wish that I knew wasn’t going to come true.

If he wants me to call him by his first name, I can do that. “Any requests for music, Felix?”

“I don’t love country,” he offers.

That surprises me. “Aren’t you a farmer?”

“Yeah, when they start writing songs about L.L. Bean boots and syrup-tapping season, I’ll start listening.” In the rearview, he shifts until his knees are behind the driver and passenger seats. “Sorry if that’s offensive to your culture or whatever.”

“I’m from Marietta.” It comes out as May-retta, the way people say it at home. “It’s a city. Or at least not the country.”

“Where?” Paquette answers.

Fine, if we’re being like that. “Mar-i-etta,” I say, careful to emphasize each syllable.

When I glance back at him again, he’s grinning. There’s a fine line between making fun of someone and teasing them. Yesterday, I thought I knew which side of the line Paquette—Felix—was on. Today, I’m not so sure.

He’s also dressed like he was yesterday, like an out-of-place lumberjack, in jeans and boots and a T-shirt as a concession to the increasingly warm weather that displays the breadth of his arms. And that beard.

The one I offered to shave off him to spare Shira from having to do so. Which will mean standing close, my hand against the stubble of his neck. Him watching me with the same appraising look he threw at me yesterday as I struggled to keep my towel up in the hallway. A look I could almost feel, like a hand tracing up my chest.

No, I can't think about that. Not about a teammate. Not while I’m supposed to be concentrating on the flow of traffic. Not with Shira here. I really like her. She’s beautiful and funny and smart and sexy and a thousand other things. That should be enough for anyone.

So I flip the radio dial, hoping whatever song plays pushes Felix from my mind.

South of Richmond and we reach the stage of traveling where it’s nothing but miles and miles of highway. Shira yawns over the notebook where she’s been jotting things for the past hour.

“That interesting, huh?” I tease.

“Yeah.” She says it like she’s trying to convince herself of that fact.

“You need a break?”

“We don’t need to stop.”

So, yes, she could use a break. “When was the last time you were at a Waffle House?”

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