Page 15 of Catch Me
“You don’t even know me.”
“Don’t have to. I make a lot of money, Roman. I’m happy to put some of it into this. It’ll be worth it, and I’ll get to claim some bragging rights since it was my idea.”
He laughed, albeit a little awkwardly. “Thank you. Really. Can I at least make you something? A portrait of you and your dog maybe.”
I smiled and looked down at Tessa. “We’d be ecstatic.”
“Cool, just think about where you’d want it to be. Your house or the river or whatever.”
“I’ll see what the monster thinks. You still haven’t answered the itinerary question.”
“Right. Friday is cool, I guess.”
“Great. I’ll send you the details when I have them. Make sure you bring a portfolio and your best smile.”
“Thanks.”
I ended the call and crouched to pet Tessa’s head. “What do you think? Backyard or the river?” She barked, and I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you want to swim. Fine, but you have to let me make decisions once in a while.”
She turned her back on me and headed outside. Apparently, we weren’t in agreement.
*****
While I waited for Roman to make it out of the airport, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. I wasn’t entirely sure how to act. We’d interacted fine on the phone, but he was more than a little prickly the one and only time we’d met. This was a professional thing, so I hoped he wouldn’t look at me with a mysterious scowl like he had a few times at the game.
I liked doing nice things for people—giving back, if you will. Baseball paid way too much, and I didn’t even know what to do with my money, so I donated quite a bit and I volunteered some of my free time to help those who didn’t have the things I did.
If only niceties always came off the way I intended. I knew those things were hard to trust, and a lot of people didn’t actually havegood intentions, but I did. I also wasn’t in the business of trying to convince people of that. If they didn’t trust me, they didn’t trust me, and we went about our lives.
I saw him leave the building, so I rolled down the windows. “Hey!”
Tessa barked through the back one to be double sure he heard us. Expressionless, he headed over to the Jeep. After he got in, he glanced at me quickly, then settled his duffle between his legs.
“How was the flight?” I asked.
“Fine.”
With an internal shrug, I pulled away from the loading zone. Tessa put her head on Roman’s shoulder and panted in his face. I knew firsthand that her breath wasn’t always tolerable, but before I could tell her to back up, he started scratching her ears. He twisted in his seat and used both hands to pet the sides of her face.
“Like dogs?”
“Who doesn’t like dogs?” he replied.
“Some people. Bad ones.”
“Hey,” he said to her. “You’re so good, huh, Tessa?”
I cocked my head as I stared at the road. “You know her name?”
“West said it.”
“Oh, right.”
I guess I knew that he’d been listening, considering he’d started acting differently after that. He’d left for half an hour to stand at the back of the room instead of being near me. We were sitting in the same car now, though, so maybe he’d moved past it.
“Did your family have pets?” I asked.
His lips thinned as he continued to pet Tessa. I focused on driving, but then I realized that I didn’t know where I was going.
