Page 26 of Great Pretender
“I wish. I half-ran into him and Sheila yesterday at the bistro in town.”
He scowls. “Christ, really?”
“Yeah, and they looked all coupley. I didn’t want to talk about it last night. That’s why I didn’t mention it. It felt good to leave that house, so I wanted to bask in that feeling of triumph.”
“I get it. I’d be the same.”
I laugh. “As if the same thing would happen to you?”
“It could.”
“No. You own your own home, and you aren’t a relationship guy, so there’s no big bust-up in the cards for you, Mister.”
He laughs nervously. “I better not comment.”
Something’s off with him. I don’t think it has to do with the recent scandal either, or maybe it does.
“What’s happening? We didn’t talk about your dad last night.”
“No, we didn’t.”
I’d waited for him to mention it, but he didn’t say a word. After Murray left, he made pizzas and we hung out for a little while before I went to bed. I did try to ask, but he talked around the topic. When he gets like that, I don’t push because it’s a sign he doesn’t want to talk. I figured if there were something crazy going on, he’d tell me.
“But something’s clearly happened. You look like you’ve been up all night.”
“I have.”
“Why?” He’d only stay up like that if something were truly wrong.
He sighs, straightens, and stares back at me. His bright blue eyes deepen in intensity, almost looking darker, like a storm’s brewing in the depths of the hue.
“I have something to ask you. It’s really bizarre, but I’m gonna ask you because I don’t think I could trust anyone else to do this thing for me in a way that it would work.”
“Chad, it sounds serious.”
“It is.”
“But you know I’d do whatever I could to help you.” I smile wider and wave him off. “Look what you’ve done for me. All you’ve done for me. Why would you be so nervous to ask me for a favor?”
“Because of what it is.”
I swallow hard. “What is it?”
“My father did not take the craziness of the other night well. It’s basically my last lap. My luck has run out, and he’s making some drastic demands of me if I want the team. He thinks I’ll ruin the company's image if I continue, which I never planned to. I swear to you I’ve changed a lot. It doesn’t matter, though, because he’s made his decision on what he wants me to do.”
“What does he want you to do?”
“Find a wife.”
My first instinct is to laugh. In fact, my lip twitches, tipping into the beginning of a smile as my facial muscles prep to burst out laughing. Of course, I would find it funny because Chad and marriage are like oil and water, or something more opposite. Like infernal fire and frigid ice.
I want to laugh, but it takes me a moment to realize this joke could yet again be on me.
He said he had something to ask me.Didn’t he?
He was nervous about asking me and clearly stayed up all night worrying over it.
Shock suffuses my soul, and I push to my feet on shaky legs.
