Page 22 of Love In Translation

“Honestly, I would tell people to go fuck themselves far more often than I did.”

“Wow. Don’t hold back, Fletch,” she whispered aloud.

“What are you bad at?”

She knew the answer to this question. He wasn’t tactful and he didn’t pull his punches.“Being patient and diplomatic. I don’t do hints, subtle or obvious. If you want me to know something, just spit it out.”

Nailed it.

“What’s the one thing you’d rush into a fire to save?”

“Two books.King Solomon’s Minesby H. Rider Haggard andInto the Wildby Jon Krakauer. After reading them as a kid, I became obsessed with traveling.”

She’d read neither and vowed she would. But only because they were classics. There was a gap in her literary education; it had nothing to do with Fletch and what he read as a kid.

“What’s your biggest fear?”

The interviewer was getting into deeper waters now, and Rheo doubted Fletch would answer. She didn’t know him well, but she suspected Fletch didn’t volunteer information, personal or otherwise.

“Fletch, your biggest fear?”

Fletch’s sigh was audible and his voice lowered, a fraction sadder when he spoke again.“I’d hate it if I had to stay in one place for the rest of my life. Being confined.”

Rheo turned over Fletch’s words, surprised by his sincerity. Why did he feel so strongly about being confined? She wanted to know.

“Then I suggest you avoid jail...hahaha.”The bad joke broke the tension.“Right. How big is your inner circle?”

“Not big.”

His answer surprised Rheo. With his looks and charisma, she expected him to have lots of friends. She imagined him to be like Carrie, who commanded attention and had hordes of people trailing in her wake.

“What’s the one thing you’d never change about yourself?”

Fletch didn’t hesitate. “My self-reliance.”

She respected his answer. She made her own decisions and owned her mistakes. True, she’d made more than usual lately, but they were hers to make, hers to own. And she’d learn from them. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but at some point in the future.

“And that’s a perfect segue into talking about your latest adventures. For those living under a rock, Fletch has spent the last twelve months exploring the North Pole, the South Pole, and for kicks, summited Mount Everest without oxygen.”

Why would hedothat? Why wouldanyonedo that? The whole it’s-there-so-I-must-conquer-it argument made no sense to her. Why put your life in danger, risking frostbite and hypothermia and rockfalls to climb a mountain? The mountain didn’t give a rat’s ass whether you got to its highest point or not.

“How did you find it, Fletcher?”

“Cold.”

Rheo grinned at his pithy answer and enjoyed his dry sense of humor. The interviewer thanked Fletch for his time and started thanking his sponsors, so she exited the podcast and placed her phone on the bedside table. As she removed her earbuds, her screen lit up with an incoming call.

Paddy. Of course it was, because life wasn’t done with kicking her ass today.Shitshitshit.Was she calling about the gazebo? Because someone saw Rheo talking to Fletch?

Rheo considered ignoring her call, but Paddy would just call back. Then she would send her a series of messages and a flurry of emails. It was easier to answer. Rheo greeted Paddy, amazed at the clarity of their call.

“It sounds like you are around the corner,” Rheo said.

“I want to see your face, I’m desperate to video call you,” Paddy complained. “I can’t understand why we always have such bad connections.”

Ah, that might be because Rheo always dropped the call if she was somewhere Paddy might recognize. Like her kitchen. Or garden. This bedroom.

“It’s a mystery,” Rheo breezily replied.

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