Page 32 of Plunge

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Fletcher

AFTER THE TWO of us stop laughing I check my watch. “Hey,” I say, nudging Thistle with my shoulder. “We’ve got a half hour and the sun’s shining. Want to take a walk with me?”

She scrunches up her face and looks out the window. The physical therapy place is in the middle of a bunch of strip malls and industrial parks. There’s not really any sidewalks anywhere, now that I think of it. “Walk where?” She asks and I shrug.

“I don’t know. Laps around the parking lot? You know I can’t sit still in a chair for a half hour.” She winces. I can tell she doesn’t like that she knows this about me, but I can’t rewrite the past. Thistle McMurray knows just about everything there is to know about me.

I stand up and extend my hand. “Come on,” I say. “I’ll go slow so you can keep up.” That gets her going. I see the familiar spark in her eyes, that gleam she’s always gotten whenever she’s felt challenged. “There it is,” I say, sprinting for the door.

Soon, we’re race walking around the parking lot like we’re in the Olympics. Elbows up, puffing, we do a few laps around the building before Thistle blows her hair out of her eyes and says, “This is ridiculous, you know.”

“You really think that or you just worried I have more stamina than you?” Thistle in her prime could probably match me lap for lap, but I have to admit I’m in pretty damn good shape after a few weeks of marching that baby up and down and all around.

Really, a restless uncle with ADHD is about the best person to help take care of a baby who can’t bear to be still for a single second. I’m not going to go easy on her, though.

Soon enough, I remember how angry I felt that night in the bar. I scowl over at her. “What the hell were you doing dating that ice cream eating asshole, anyway?”

She growls and gets ahead of me just far enough that I can admire her ass in her black yoga pants. She’s wearing clogs, so I know her shins must be burning from trying to keep up this sort of pace. She doesn’t hesitate, though. She turns over her shoulder. “Indigo was trying to put me out of my misery I guess. She set me up with him through an app.”

We both laugh at that. Then she trips over a crack in the pavement and starts tumbling forward. I lean to catch her, but her forward momentum is too great. Both of us tumble to the ground around the back of the building, rolling past an employee sitting on a milk crate having a smoke. He looks over at us, confused. “You all ok?”

“Yes,” Thistle says, rolling onto her back and lying with her hands clasped behind her head. “We’re fine.”

I decide to stay lying down right next to her. Not sure why. The past five minutes have probably been the most fun I’ve had since I came home.

“So what’s actually going on,” I ask her. “Talk to me.”

She looks over at me and I hear the sound of the smoke-break guy going back inside. “We’re all alone,” I say, gesturing around the desolate area. “Tell your husband all about it.”

“Fletcher, come on,” she says, and rolls on her side. She rests her head on her hand, elbow on the pavement.

I start seeing flashes of our wedding night, when I finally got her back to my hotel room and told her I wanted to fuck her. I get hard, remembering the way her eyes widened, the way her body quivered with want as she let her dress fall to the carpet.

She looks at me and starts talking. “I didn’t want to come home and take care of my fucking mom in the first place.” She blurts out the whole story of her dad swooping into town just long enough to strong-arm her into being Teresa’s nurse.

“Did your brother even come home for Christmas,” I ask, realizing that’s kind of a shitty question coming from me. She shakes her head and continues her vent.

“He was here for Christmas Day for like two hours. And Mom and I went to so much trouble! God, she must do all that every year. Every year, Fletcher. All the decorations for every holiday. All the cooking.”

She flops back onto her back again. “Do you know I have a color-coded calendar now? For different appointments and stuff? I’m pretty much a soccer mom. I’m even driving a station wagon. A station wagon!”

She gestures toward the parking lot. I nod, remembering the wood-paneled monstrosity parked out there near the Prius I borrowed to drive Abigail here. “You know what might make you feel better?” I trace a finger along her hip as she lies on the pavement.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but she seems into it, so I let that finger wander over to her chest and I can see her nipple pebble through the material of her sweater. “I can help you relieve some of that pent-up frustration.”

She closes her eyes. “I thought we said it would just be once,” she whispers.

“Hm,” I respond, keeping my thumb circling her nipple. “I guess I did say that.” I withdraw my thumb and she gasps. I grin. “I’ve been known to be wrong.”

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