Page 28 of The Spider & the Storm

I reluctantly lifted one side of my mouth in a tight-lipped smile. “Sometimes, you have jokes.”

“Wouldn’t kill you to smile every now and then, Chuck. Might be exactly what the doctor ordered.”

Ivan limped along toward the house. While I normally moved at a brisker pace, I never walked faster than he did. He never commented on it, but I knew he must have noticed because every so often, he’d try to pick up speed, only to wince and slow down again.

“Take it easy, old timer,” I’d tease, never mind that he was only eight years my senior, and he’d roll his eyes and mutter something about getting off his lawn.

But today, he didn’t bother moving faster than he was comfortable as we moseyed along to the cottage. Maybe it was the weather—delightfully cloudy and always two seconds away from raining—or maybe it was the company.

For me, surprisingly, it was both.

Ivan’s visit today had caught me off guard, but it’d scratched half of that insistent itch to feel some semblance of companionship. I hoped it would be enough to refill my proverbial bucket before his next visit.

“I’m getting married,” Ivan blurted out, completely unprompted.

I tucked my hair behind my ear as I glanced at him, startled by the news. “Why did I think you were single?”

“I was until a month ago,” he explained, a whimsical smile on his face.

I widened my eyes, taken aback. “And you’re gettingmarried?”

“Kid, I’m forty-six years old. At the rate I’m going, I have far more years behind me than ahead of me. I met Lyla at a bookstore, and we … oh, I just don’t know, Chuck. I always thought that whole love at first sight thing was a farce, invented by the same people who believed in Valentine’s Day—”

“Because it is,” I interjected, laughing incredulously.

“No,” he argued lightly, shaking his head and keeping his eyes on the ground as we turned up the path. “It’s not. You’d understand if it happened to you.”

“Well, listen”—I pulled my keys out and unlocked the door to a place we’d both called home at one point or another—“if you’re happy, I’m happy for you.”

“Oh, I’m happy.”

“Then, I guess I’m happy too.”

I hung my keys beside the door and pulled off my jacket, just in time to catch the dubious look in Ivan’s eyes. It was enough to furrow my brow as I hung my jacket up on the coat rack.

“What’s that look for?”

“Well, no offense, Chuck, but I don’t know thathappyis the word I’d use to describe you.”

A noise akin to a growl rose in my throat. “Ivan. Seriously. You know I hate it when you call me Chuck.”

Ivan ignored the complaint—he usually did—as he pulled off his black-framed glasses and used the hem of his shirt to buff them clean. “I’ve known you for years, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you crack arealsmile.”

There was no reason to honor that statement with a reply. So, instead, I asked, “Coffee?”

“One cup. I have to skedaddle in a few minutes. Need to hurry home and cook dinner for my lady love.”

Lady love?I released a huff that sounded more begrudged than intended on my way to the kitchen.

It wasn’t that I was particularly against the idea of love or romance in regard to other people. I was accepting of the happiness others found in their lives, and I had witnessed my parents’ devotion to each other up until the day they died. But I couldn’t help my own miserable luck in that department—or Luke’s for that matter.

“Been drawing anything good lately?” Ivan asked as I walked into the brick-walled kitchen and opened a cabinet.

“I haven’t been drawing much, period,” I replied.

“What’s this then?”

I glanced through the open doorway into the adjacent living room to find Ivan peering down at the open sketch pad on the table between the wingback chairs.

---