Page 82 of Finders Keepers
“Wow. You really weren’t.” I press up against him in the doorway and take his hand. I place a gentle kiss on his knuckles. “I know I’m a bit late, but I hope that still helps make it better.”
“Let me see.” He cups one of my breasts and gently squeezes as his thumb swipes over where my nipple is beneath the fabric of my shirt and bra. “Hey. Look at that. It’s a miracle.”
I roll my eyes and reach for his face, kissing him until both of his hands find purchase on my body. “Do you want to open the puzzle box now?” I ask when his mouth drifts to my neck.
“No,” he answers simply, walking us into my room and turning me toward the bed.
A short time later, stretched out atop my comforter on the floor—the bed wasn’t anywhere near big enough—our clothes hanging in disarray from our bodies as if we tried to get dressedinside one of those hurricane-strength wind machines that used to be at the mall, Quentin traces the shell of my ear with his finger, then drifts down to my collarbone.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“I’m…You…Too good. Can’t again,” I say, still too drunk on the aftermath of pleasure to express coherent thoughts. “Not yet.”
He laughs. “That’s very satisfying to hear. But I meant are you ready to open Fountain’s box?”
“Oh.” Best-case outcome: We open the box and there’s something so incredibly wonderful and valuable inside that the Conservancy insists on giving us a reward even though they don’t have to. Worst-case outcome: The treasure isn’t a treasure at all, but a trap—something super toxic that causes a slow, painful death for everyone in the house. Most likely: It’s…a coin? A tiny brass figurine of a whale? I don’t know. I really never expected us to get this far, nor do I have any clue what someone as unpredictable as Fountain would find worth creating a whole posthumous treasure hunt around. But whatever is inside that box, once we see it…well, this is kind of all over, isn’t it? Maybe not immediately, but soon.
Things will have to change, for better or worse.
Delaying opening the box isn’t going to delay the inevitable, though. We’ve waited so long to know. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”
Quentin reaches up to his right and grabs it from where I left it on my bookshelf. “I don’t know if it’ll work here…” I say, rising up on my knees. I clear the top of the nightstand to make space. “It may need a larger table.”
Once there’s nothing in the way, Quentin places the puzzle box in the center of the small surface. “Now what?” he asks.
“Now we…spin it,” I say, gently pressing my fingertips toopposite sides of the box. I give it a good flick. It makes two rotations before stopping, right on the edge of the nightstand. Quentin nudges it back to its original starting point, and I try again. This time it flies off and lands on the floor, the comforter thankfully softening the blow.
“Maybe you should do it,” I say. “This is apparently not an area in which I excel.”
“Took a couple decades, but we finally found one,” he teases, then leans over and kisses my shoulder. He keeps his head resting against mine and his other arm wrapped around my waist as he takes a deep breath and gives the puzzle box a proper spin. It comes to rest in approximately the same location it started.
“That was a good spin,” I say quietly, as if my words might disturb it.
“Check it,” he says, nudging me with his nose as he presses his mouth against my skin.
My hands shake as I reach for the box and find the top loose. I slowly, slowly raise it up, until the bottom sits there, open.
I look to Quentin to find him already looking back at me, his expression somewhere between victory and defeat. “There it is. That’s the look I’ve always loved most,” he whispers. “The one on your face right now. Like you’ve just conquered the world. Hard to mind you beating me at anything when it always put that look on your face.”
It’s hard to tear my eyes away from him, the deep longing and affection living in the space between us palpable enough that it feels like something I might be able to package up and carry with me. He smiles ruefully and says, “So what’s inside, cookiepuss? Don’t keep me waiting.”
FORM C—9
Text of Interview (Unedited)
IX
Lou is leaving me at the end of this month. Retiring. She’s been in my employ for twenty-six years—longer than anyone save Marshall, my butler, whom you met when you arrived.
Have you ever had a secretary, Mr. Aaron? No, no, indeed you haven’t. Writers must be quite successful before they can hire a person to do their typing for them, I imagine. And if you were so successful, you would not be doing this job. No offense intended, of course!
Fordham was the one who hired Lou, but I immediately knew we would suit. I’m a stubborn old horse, Mr. Aaron—and this is hardly a new quality of mine—but Lou is quite the formidable jockey. She’s one of only a few people I’ve ever met who knows when to give me my head and when to rein me in. And one of even fewer I will allow to do so!
It is hard to believe she will be off on her own adventures soon. We’ve had so many of them together, you see. The business. Raising Issy. Ruling Edlo. In many ways, Lou has been my partner in all of it. Perhaps a change in title and paywould convince her to give it another year or two? But no. No. She deserves her rest, and time to enjoy the fruits of her labor instead of moldering here with me.
It’s only that…Well, Mr. Aaron, it is strange to live so much of your life alongside someone else, with them living theirs alongside you, the two never quite coming to meet.
Lou and I were almost always in agreement about Fountain Seltzer, and usually about Issy. We often worked in such harmony that I sometimes did not know where Lou ended and I began, and vice versa. Yet there were also a handful of times that…times I suppose when we did not see eye to eye on things. And in those moments, ones when Lou and I were not of one mind, it felt like being torn asunder from myself.
