Page 49 of Holding On to a Hero
“Yeah, like hobbies that take up a lot of your free time. It’s okay if you do!” He rushed to assure me. “I just like to know what they are.
Okay. “Uh, other than the wildlife photography, not really. But I take care of my niece after school while my sister is at work, so I can make friendship bracelets with the best of them.” I said this with a joking smile, but Felix looked wary.
“Like, do you just do that with your niece, or do you make them on your own too?”
I choked on my drink. Once I stopped coughing, I assured him I only made friendship bracelets with Abby. He chuckled politely and looked relieved again, so I was curious. “Why do you ask that?”
He groaned and took a long swallow from his drink. “That was Trent. Trent of the trains, as I like to call him. He had model trains.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem too weird. It’s kind of cute, actually, in a geeky sort of way.”
Felix set his drink down threw up his hands. “See? That’s what I thought at first too. Especially when he told me it was something he did with his grandfather as a child, so it seemed really sentimental. But then he took out his phone to show me pictures of the trains. And not just one or two. He had hundreds of photos of them. And then I noticed that the trains went through the walls in his house. He’d built tunnels through the drywall so they could go from room to room.”
“Wow, that does sound like a significant hobby.”
“Right? But even at that point I was trying to convince myself that it was just quirky and wouldn’t be a deal-breaker.”
“Uh, oh. Then what happened?” I really felt kind of guilty, gossiping with Felix about his former dates, but this was possibly the most entertained I’d been in a good while. Six weeks in fact.
“Well, then he let slip he couldn’t sleep unless he could hear the sound of the trains.”
“I’m sorry. You mean he runs the trains all night, and he can’t sleep if he doesn’t?”
He gave me an exaggerated nod. “Whistles and everything. That was too much for me, so I developed a sudden stomachache and noped out of there.”
“Wow.” Our food arrived, and after we’d exclaimed over how delicious everything was, I decided a topic change was in order. “Your profile said you were in customer service. What kind of customer service work do you do?”
“You remember my profile?” Felix looked astonished. Who were these assholes he’d been going out with?People who thought he’d be hard up based on his crappy profile picture, probably. I winced guiltily. “Well, right now I’m working at a call center, but my dream—”
“Mr. Graham? We thought that was you!” Startled, I looked up to see Detectives Ochoa and Callahan smiling at me.
“Oh! Hi, Detectives. How are you?”
“We’re good. We just got off duty and stopped in for a beer, but we saw you over here and wanted to check on you. How are you feeling? How’s the shoulder?” Callahan patted the shoulder in question gingerly.
“Oh, it’s good. Getting better all the time.” I glanced at Felix, who seemed a little unsure about our visitors. “Uh, Detectives Ochoa and Callahan,” I gestured between them, “This is Felix.” I stopped short. It wasn’t like we’d exchanged last names.
“Ah, nice to meet you,” Felix managed. He looked at me. “You were injured?” His left eyebrow lifted to add,andthere were police involved?Crap. I wondered if a visit to the table by a couple of cops was enough to earn Felix his hundred dollars.
Ochoa’s eyes darted between me and Felix and he frowned. “Are you on a date? Um, you aren’t giving up, are you?”
“I’m not giving up, it’s just –“
“Because he could wake up at any time. And what about Mr. Shelton?”What the hell?
“Detective,” I said sharply, “Thank you for checking on me, but I am, as you pointed out, on a date.” With a man whose expression had moved from uneasy to pissed.
Still frowning, Ochoa took a step back. “Right. We should probably get back….” He gestured vaguely toward the bar.
“Of course,” I said overly politely. “Thanks for stopping by.”
I waited until they were out of earshot before I turned back to Felix. He’d put his fork down and had his hands flat on the table as he glared at me. Yep, he was mad.
“Boyfriend in acoma?” He hissed. “Are you serious?” He was going to earn that hundred after all.
* * *
Excerpt from transcript of interview with Charla Fenton, actress and Cole Washburn’s ex-girlfriend:
