Page 70 of The Progressions

“Because of Oren?”

“Because I’m tired of having to pull away when I kiss you,” he answered. “But if I don’t stop myself, I’ll start to take off your clothes in this trailer and I know you don’t lock the door.”

“Players can’t have guests at the Wequetong Inn,” I said. I knew that for sure; it was one of the Woodsmen rules.

“César Hidalgo had his wife there all the time so they could have a night together away from their kids. She went to high school with the night manager and that woman let her in a back door and took her up to his room in the service elevator.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I talked to him. I texted Hidalgo the other day and he called me back.”

“Really? What did you say?”

“I told him that he might have heard that I had badmouthed him and I was sorry. I said I had acted like a booty hole because I was worried that I couldn’t step into his shoes.” He took my chin in his palm. “Kasia, are you going to cry?”

I was, so I nodded.

“Why, honey? Do you think I shouldn’t have done that? He was great about it, not pissed off at all. He even thanked me for the message.” Tyler wiped under my eyes. “Why are you crying?”

“Because it’s like…” I sniffed. “It’s like I see this change in you and I’m so happy about it.”

“I’m becoming a man?” he asked, grinning.

“No, you were always that…” I sniffed again and he kissed me gently.

“I don’t like the tears.” He kissed me again. “You say you’re happy, but you look pretty damn sad. When you cry, you get crap under your eyes, too.” He seemed surprised by that.

“I know.” I had never figured out how Shay Galton managed to be so perfect because even with waterproof mascara, I still turned into a mess.

“Listen. Come to the hotel,” he said, and stood up, setting me on my feet. I hung onto him for a moment, because I was aware of what he wanted to do there and yes, I was all in. I was part of a progression of women in his life, but I was also the one he’d just called “honey” and the one he was now holding pretty closely. I didn’t know what that meant, though, and I was trying not to think it meant too much.

He did have to leave for the stadium, after telling me not to go looking for Oren. I went out, too, locking the door behind me and then, yes, checking around for Oren but only in the open areas where it was safe. But he really wasn’t on the premises. Then I had to tell Iva all this, because it was more than I wanted to handle by myself.

“Damn,” she breathed. “Hang on, I have to switch breasts.” Little baby Balderston was doing great with that and was growing so much that she and Miss Gail were talking about getting him bigger clothes, very, very warm ones for winter.

“Damn,” she repeated when he was happily eating again. “Oren?”

“I don’t know, and he’s not here.”

“He’s missing work again,” she said. “Did you write it on the spreadsheet? Maybe we should get the private investigator to look into him, too.” She’d talked about that with me, after all. Stupid—just Dominic was living with another woman in South Lyon, downstate, in an apartment that held a lot of the furniture he’d moved out of Iva’s former home. He wasn’t working, shaving, or eating very healthily (because he’d looked terrible in the pictures the PI had gotten). She had also managed to find out that there was an offer on Iva’s former home, which might have meant some money for baby Balderston.

“I was so focused on Oren that it didn’t occur to me to ask a really basic question,” I told Iva. “How did the people in the main office even find out about this problem?”

“If one of the residents called the police, maybe the officers contacted them,” she guessed, but I only shrugged. Iva knew a few people who worked there due to dealing with them more, and she said that she would try to find out.

“Uh, by the way, could I borrow something to wear?” I asked casually.

“Sure, take whatever,” she answered, but didn’t question why and I found that odd. I thought that maybe she was preoccupied with the issue of the thefts—but it wasn’t that.

“So, I think I forgot to tell you that Oisín will be visiting,” she told me, equally casual. It reminded me a lot of our former conversations when we’d seen a Woodsmen player in our parking lot (“Hm, seems like John Hatcher and the girl next to him in Building C are getting together. They look pretty happy, I guess.”)

“Oisín, the malacologist from Galway?” I asked.

“That’s the one.” She was looking down at baby Balderston’s light brown hair, the same color as hers but a lot sparser. “He may start a study of unionid mussels here. Maybe.”

“Are you serious? He’s coming to Michigan, to stay?”

“Maybe,” she said, but she had turned bright red, and this was a situation that we needed to keep an eye on. After I went through her closet and chose something nice, I texted Miss Gail on my way out...and I realized that I was no better than Iva herself. I was a snitch, but it was because she was a good friend. I was worried about her future and her happiness, and I knew that Miss Gail was, too.

---