Page 69 of The Good Boy

“Oh, okay,” Miles says. Producing a tennis ball from his pocket, he waves it at Rory. “The tide is out—shall we go for a walk on the beach?”

“Yes!” Rory wakes up with a start and punches the air, making Claudia jump and giggle. “Bally time!”

“Rory just really likes the beach,” I tell her as I grab him by the wrist. “He’s Australian.”

“Take your time,” Nanna Maria says as she examines Claudia’s palms. “I can see that Claudia and I have a lot of ground to cover.”

“Ooh, do I need to cross your palm with silver?” Claudia asks.

“Or I take PayPal, if that’s easier,” Nanna Maria tells her.

“So... you and Claudia, is that happening?” I half ask Miles as we head to the beach. He lobs the tennis ball, and Rory, who is still a little bit off his head, gallops after it, promptly followed by two springer spaniels and an ambitious Westie, their owners calling them back in vain.

“Not exactly. We are just hanging out,” Miles says.

“Even after Claudia’s clearly-planned-to-entrap-you picnic?”

“Oh, that...” Miles smiles. “Yeah, she’s funny.”

“So you’re not an item yet?” I ask, trying not to sound like I care.

“No, we just talked,” Miles tells me. “Claudia is new, and she doesn’t know many people. It’s hard to find your feet in a new town, as I know. So, we talked about stuff and got to know each other a bit more. It was nice, actually. She’s easy to hang out with. Uncomplicated. Nice. I don’t want to rush her into anything, if all she needs is a friend. Like I said, she’s nice.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah, like your hair thing, and the lips. Nice. You look nice. Anyway, what were you going to say to me before Claudia turned up yesterday?” he asks, tilting his head. “It felt important.”

I look at my darling Miles, just on the verge of being happy with a nice, uncomplicated woman, and I know what to say.

“Did it?” I ask, with a shrug. “Gosh, it’s gone right out of my mind.”

“Shame,” Miles said. “Well, he looks like he’s perked up a bit, at least.”

He nods at Rory, who is racing through the surf holding the tennis ball aloft, whooping and cheering as the other dogs chase him.

I look into his face, made half golden by the afternoon sun, for as long as I can before I search the horizon for Rory again. About 0.1 seconds by a rough estimate.

We keep walking away from the parlor, up toward the spa beach huts. Running ahead, Rory has made it to the rock pools that are only revealed when the tide is out. I watch him hopping from one rocky outcrop to another, peering into them like Nanna Maria does into her crystal ball.

“It’s pretty clear that Claudia is into you, she’s not interested in just a friend,” I say at length. “You realize that, right? She’s into you, dude.”

What am I doing and why am I doing it? is what I screech inside my head while grinning like a loon.

“Do you really think so?” Miles asks. “I can never tell when a girl likes me. Sometimes I think I know, and then she goes and says or does something that makes it clear that she can’t feel that way about me. It’s confusing.”

“Really, you’re confused by the way Claudia is right now?” I ask him. “She couldn’t do much more to make it clear that she likes you. Other than some sort of bat signal in the night sky, I suppose. Or a small plane flying a long banner that reads, ‘I think you are dreamy, Miles!’”

“I’m not dreamy.” Miles chuckles. “I’m just a quite tall geologist. Nothing special.”

“You are special!” I protest, thumping him on the arm. “You are funny and clever and... se—stuff. A woman like Claudia would be a hundred percent into you. Any woman would.”

“Any woman?” he asks me. And he’s not fishing for compliments—he really wants to know.

“Yeah. I’ll say.”

“Huh,” he says. “Could someone tell Zendaya?”

I punch him lightly on the arm again.

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