Page 80 of Love in Tandem
The treasure.
Or at least . . . something. A letter, from the looks of it. Sitting inside an airtight ziplock bag. Oh please be the treasure. “Here,” Sophia said, shoving it into his hands. “You read it. I’m too nervous.”
She jumped to her feet and began pacing. “Well?” she said after he’d had enough time to memorize the letter, let alone read it. “What does it say? Does it explain how to get the money or what?”
“It certainly explains things.” Joshua held out the letter without saying another word. Sophia finally gave in. She snatched the letter from his hand and began reading.
Then she slowly sank to the ground once the words started to penetrate.
I know you’ll be disappointed, perhaps devastated, when I tell you I have no earthly riches to give you for completing the bicycle challenge. But I promise I wasn’t lying when I said you’d receive a prize of great value should you complete it.
It’s a prize I myself never received. A prize I would have treasured more than a lengthy baseball career or any amount of money. And that is the prize of a long and successful marriage.
Funny the things you stew over when you know you’re reaching the end of your life. Me, I couldn’t stop stewing over a challenge that might help a couple land at a better place than my ex-wife and I did. A challenge that offered a taste of “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer” before making those vows.
I imagine biking together five hundred miles offered a sampling of for better or worse. And now that you know there isn’t any money, perhaps you have an inkling of the for richer or poorer.
Sophia had read enough. She crumpled the paper, not sure whether she wanted to punch someone or . . . cry.
Probably cry. Because thing was, Zach and Charlotte were never a couple. Not really. So how could she get mad over the unfairness of it all when every one of them had been stretching the rules from the start?
Well, every one of them except Joshua. Sweet, cute Joshua, who’d worked so hard to help. Sweet, cute Joshua who would no longer have a reason to stay.
Ignoring the building pressure behind her eyes, Sophia marched back to where their digging supplies were sprawled next to the truck and hurled the wadded paper into the truck bed.
D’Artagnan panted from the shade of a tree. Joshua picked up one of the shovels and jammed the tip into the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I feel like I should have figured this out sooner. Especially now when I remember how many times he mentioned wishing he and his wife had been tested more before they got married. I should have seen this coming.” Joshua pushed away from the shovel. After handing her a water bottle, he opened another one to pour into an empty Cool Whip container for D’Artagnan.
When Joshua plopped to the ground, resting his back against the tree, Sophia joined him. After a minute or so of silence, she rested her head against his shoulder. After another minute, she worked up the courage to ask the question she didn’t want to hear the answer to. “So what will you do now?”
“Hmm?” He’d lightly dropped his head against hers before lifting it again.
“Your job? You don’t like it.”
He straightened further away from her. “I never said I didn’t like my job.”
“Yes, you did. You basically said your dad pressured you into it when you wanted to be a preacher or something. Plus, the night I dragged you across the floor, you said selling furniture was boring and you hated it.” He may have been delirious with exhaustion, but he’d said it.
He stood and swiped the dirt from his hands. D’Artagnan, having apparently revived from lapping his water bowl dry, trotted over to press against Joshua’s legs for affection. Which Joshua obliged. “Okay, so maybe I don’t love my career. But it doesn’t change the fact it’s my job. I have to get back to Wisconsin.”
“You could stay.”
“Sophia . . .” She knew by his tone he was trying not to make his next words sting. “I’ve wasted too much time here as it is.”
For not wanting his words to sting, they sure packed a wallop. “Why can’t you do what you want?”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“Sure it is.” She stood, petting D’Artagnan so she had something to do with her hands other than grab onto Joshua and beg him to stay. “Go back to school. Begin a new chapter. Do something you enjoy.”
He grabbed his hair, working it into a poorly shaped mohawk as he avoided her gaze. “I have commitments. You wouldn’t understand.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not a child, you know.” All right. Maybe she was acting like one at the moment.
Joshua hefted the cooler next to his shovel. “All I’m saying is eventually you have to realize not all of life’s troubles can be solved with eating and dancing. Sometimes you have to . . . well, get back to work. Whether you want to or not.”
