Page 79 of Heart and Soul
A laugh surges up my throat, but I cut it off just before it can escape. I didn’t want the ice to break between us, but dammit if Matt hasn’t accomplished it. I lean back against the counter, resigned to hear her out. Hearthemout, rather.
“But here’s the thing. When you go home to check your bank account, you discover that the prize money they deposited wasn’t fifty thousand. It was ten million.”
The mug stops just short of my lips. My brows fly up.
“You’re screwed,” she says.
“How do you figure?”
“Fifty thousand, that’s all you wanted, and more than you needed. Fifty thousand advances your life, lets you move forward. And if you screw up and lose it all? That’s a bummer, but not the end of the world.”
“If you say so.”
“It was a luxury, after all. And not so much that you couldn’t save up to that number again. It’s not unreachable.”
“I guess.”
“But ten million?” She shakes her head. “Ten million doesn’t change your life, it changesyou. It doesn’t just let you move forward in life, it makes it so you can never go back. Ten million, you don’t just appreciate, youworship. You lie awake at night, terrified by the question…”
She looks at me, and I’m surprised to know exactly what that terrifying question is, because we’re not talking about money at all. “What if I lose him?”
“Sometimes maybe you wonder if you’d have been better off not winning that tournament.”
“Is that what you wish?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Coffee?”
“Sure.”
I pour her a mug and sit at the table. As she sips, I build up the nerve to say, “He can feel it, Charlotte. Matt feels everything you feel when you look at Russo.”
She turns her face away, embarrassed to hear it said out loud. “It’s nothing. And I’ll do nothing. It will pass.”
“I don’t doubt it. But that’s…”
She glances at me with tears in her eyes. “What?”
“That’s…” I can’t spit it out. Honestly, I’m worried she’ll throw scalding coffee in my face. I brace myself for the worst. “That’s not what Matt wants.”
She takes her mug, but only to move it further away. Also steeling herself for the worst, I guess. “What does he want?”
“He says that sometimes he can’t get through to you. That it’s getting harder for you to hear him.”
“I hear him just fine.”
“Then I don’t have to say it. You already know what he wants.”
“He hasn’t said a word.”
“He has. You just won’t hear it. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t, either.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants you to be happy.”
“Meaning what? How, exactly?”
