Page 23 of Saving Mr. Bell

We sat opposite each other, Arlo raising an eyebrow as I tipped the cards out onto the table and treated them to a deliberately showy shuffle. “I had an ex who was a croupier,” I explained.

He smirked. “And that’s what you spent your time together doing?”

“Amongst other things.” It would have been a perfect lead-in to bring up the subject of his husband again, but he’d clammed up to such a degree this morning, I didn’t want to risk a return of that same tension. Not when we’d been getting on so well. “He taught me a few things. I taught him a few things.”

“It sounds as if you liked him. What happened?”

I looked away from Arlo’s all-seeing gaze, concentrating on the cards. “He was in Monaco. I was… everywhere else. By the time I returned to Monaco, he’d grown bored of waiting and moved on. I couldn’t say I blamed him.”

“But you wonder what could have been?”

I shrugged. “It was a while back. I don’t lie awake at night thinking about him, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“If he’d been the one, he would have waited for you,” Arlo said softly.

“The one,” I scoffed. “Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff?”

“You don’t?”

“Not really.” I didn’t pick Arlo up on avoiding answering by turning it into a question. Cards thoroughly shuffled, I sat back in my chair, keeping my gaze trained on him so I could see his reaction. “By the way, we’re playing strip poker, just to make things a bit more interesting.”

Arlo didn’t disappoint, rocking back in his chair like I’d struck him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“No? Why not? Because you’re married?”Good one, Rudolf! Your plan not to mention it lasted 3.8 seconds before you put your foot in it.

“Nothing to do with that.”

“You are still married, though?” While his fidgeting said he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the line of questioning, he at least was staying put, which was a vast improvement on this morning.

“Legally.”

“Do you think you’ll get back together?”

“No.”

A definitive answer without a pause that only made me more curious.

“I’m going to keep asking until you tell me to zip it.”

Arlo let out a sigh. “You’re looking for a story where there isn’t one.”

“Well, you see,” I said. “I once knew this documentary maker, so I learned from the best. He made me talk about my poor, dead mother, and everything.” Arlo’s wince made me feel guilty when that conversation had happened off-camera and had involveddiscussing Arlo’s similar experiences, not just mine. “If it’s not a story, then just tell me. It’s your own fault for borrowing me. Had you not brought me here, I wouldn’t be able to ask annoying questions, would I? Who do you think I’m going to tell?”

“It wouldn’t matter if you told someone.” I stared at him until he cracked. “Fine. Bruno and I mistook lust for love in the worst possible place to do that.”

“Vegas?”

Arlo nodded. “We tried to make a go of it. But it didn’t take long to realize that beyond wanting to do each other, we had nothing in common.”

“I’m sure there are successful marriages built on less.”

Arlo laughed. “Maybe... if the lust doesn’t wear off, but for us, it did, and then we found ourselves with nothing but awkward silences and a desire to avoid each other.”

“Ouch!”

“Yeah.”

“So, it was a mutual decision?”

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