Page 39 of A Christmas Mystery

Theo has joined us at last. He’s mounting the treadmill on the other side of Greg.

Giving him only a brief glance, I focus again on Greg. “I thought you might have wanted to do something more creative.”

“Yeah.” Greg sighs. “But what we want and what life gives us are rarely the same.”

There’s a poignance in his words that feels familiar to me. It hits home. “I’m sorry. That’s so true. So you can’t tell your dad you’d rather do something else?”

“I guess I could have. But it would have blown a hole into the family, and I wasn’t prepared to do that.” He shrugs. “It’s fine. It is what it is. And what kind of ass would I be if I whined about being given a fairly easy position that pays a lot of money?”

“I don’t know. Money changes things, but it isn’t always the most important thing. I think you’re allowed to whine a little if you want.”

“Thanks. What have you been doing since Chris— Oh wait, someone said you’ve gotten big on Instagram. You travel around in a camper?”

“A tiny house. But yes, I’ve been taking it all over the country. I got lucky with followers, and my living expenses are pretty low, so I’ve been doing okay for myself these past two years.”

“Oh that’s good to hear. I’m really sorry about Chris. I always liked him. He was a great guy.”

I gulp over a tightness in my throat, but the grief doesn’t overwhelm me like it used to. “Thank you.” I look past Greg to Theo, whose frown is even deeper now. “Theo let me come today as a guest.”

Greg turns toward Theo as if he only now noticed he was there. “Yeah, how’re you doing, man?”

“Not bad.”

“Don’t you normally work out in the mornings?”

“Yes, but my schedule today got turned around. Plus Maya wanted to come.”

He sounds relaxed and believable. There’s no way Greg is going to suspect we have ulterior motives for being here.

“I’m glad you did,” he says, smiling at me again.

I smile back. “Me too.”

Theo scowls.

“I’ve got to finish up my workout,” Greg says in a different tone. “But maybe we can get together sometime while you’re in town to catch up.”

It feels like Theo is bristling, but I don’t care. If he can chat it up with the pretty blonde, then I can meet up with Greg.

We’re not together. We’re not even on a date.

No matter how it initially felt like one.

“Sure, maybe we can.”

This appears to satisfy Greg. He picks up the speed of his jogging to a moderately fast run. My guess from the way he’s staring at the control panel is that he’s trying to reach a certain distance or time before he stops.

I keep up my semifast walking, not even out of breath yet. I don’t want to get all hot and sweaty, so I’m not planning to push myself too hard.

Theo started out with a slow jog, but he’s speeding up now too. In fact, he’s speeding up a lot.

After a couple of minutes, I glance over and see that he’s keeping pace with Greg.

Nope, now he’s going even faster.

As I watch, Greg starts to accelerate. He’s slanting his eyes over at Theo’s machine, and I realize he’s checking Theo’s speed on the display. He runs faster until he’s matching it. Then beating it.

My lips part. I really can’t believe this. Are they actually trying to race each other? Competing in some sort of macho showdown?

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