Page 19 of Tempest

“It’s fine,” she says, except I see her throat move like she’s swallowing down what she really wants to say. “It’s good to see you. How’s Caroline?”

All hope of casually catching up with Odette flies out the wide-open French doors behind her. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected anything different. Sure, it’s been twenty years, but the way I handled things back then was abysmal, at best.

“She’s good. Better than ever, happy back in New York. I hear she’s dating.”

“Are you divorced?” Odette blinks a few times, her long lashes as black as her hair.

“For over a year now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. It sounds genuine. Which makes sense, honestly. Despite how we ended, I never knew Odette to be bitter or vicious. Though I wouldn’t blame her for hating us.

“Don’t be.” I offer no other explanation. This isn’t the place. “You look…fucking amazing. And this place is something else, Odette. You’ve done well for yourself.”

“In some ways, sure. And thank you,” she says, running a hand down the fine fabric at her hip. “You have, too. Your plan came off without a hitch.”

“In some ways, sure,” I throw her words back at her. Most certainly not in others. I had planned on a passionate and loving marriage, after all. “How are you liking Seattle?”

“So far, I’m loving it. But everyone tells me to wait for winter.”

“Not much different than New York winters, in my experience.”

“That’s good to hear,” she says, averting her gaze back to the windows.

“Sorry, I’m probably keeping you from your guests,” I say, touching her shoulder as I move to step around her. “I’ll catch up with you later, Quinn.”

I don’t give her a chance to say anything else. I don’t want to hear her say no, nor do I want to monopolize her while she has a house full of guests. I grab a water and wander the main floor. It’s not what I would imagine her living in, this grandeur. I’d have expected her in a small bungalow, busting at the seams with art and kitsch. Those are present here, but the scale feels wrong, somehow.

I check in with Tori and meet a few of her classmates. None are overly impressed by me, which is probably a breath of fresh air for my daughter. There have been too many times in her life when she thought she had to fight for attention around me. For all the privileges my career brings her, there have been plenty of downsides, as well.

After about an hour of aimless meandering, I settle into a chair on the back patio and watch the sun play over the lake. It’s a comfortable silence until an older gentleman sits in the chair next to me.

“I hear this is your last season,” he says.

“It is. I’m practically geriatric by NHL standards,” I confirm.

“George Andrews,” the man says, holding out his hand to me.

“Gavin Vaughn. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. What brings a star of the Seattle Blades to my friend’s home today?” he asks with an edge of possessiveness that draws my curiosity.

“That’s my daughter.” I nod my head toward Tori, who’s laughing with a couple of her cohorts. “She thought she should drag me along today because Odette and I grew up together, oddly enough.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Not at all, we come from the same smallish town in upstate New York.”

“You’re telling me you knew the most enigmatic woman in all of fashion before she was the enigmatic woman? I thought my wife was the only one,” he says, smiling ear to ear. He leans closer to me, elbows on his knees. “What was she like as a child?”

“She was mysterious then, too. Kept to a small circle of friends, mostly artsy types. Which I guess you’d expect. She made her own rules in life. According to my daughter, she still does. And she always had a smile that drew you in.”

A memory conjures from one of the few classes we shared in high school. It was creative writing and we had to read our short stories for the class. A guy named Jerry was reading his, a fantasy tale about visiting a sideshow and running into a womanly snake creature with huge tits. Odette burst out laughing, unable to contain herself. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I’d never seen her display her joy so unabashedly before. Half of the class probably fell for her at that moment, her head thrown back as she snorted, not trying to control herself at all. I’m sure she laughed like that with her friends, but it wasn’t something the rest of us saw much of.

Fuck, she had a great laugh. Does she still?

“You haven’t stayed close?”

“No, we haven’t spoken in almost twenty years,” I answer. The last time I saw her is imprinted on my brain. Our last conversation haunts me like a recurring nightmare. It’s difficult to remember things I talked about last week, but I remember every word that was passed between the two of us that night. Our last night.

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