Page 34 of The Pocket Pair

“If you wouldn’t mind removing your skin cells from the glass,” he says, his tone as crisp as a winter frost.

Only once I’m done scrubbing my stupidity from the door do I approach Mr. Silver, who is straightening the already straight frames on the wall and frowning at the perfect lighting.

“Do you need something?” he asks without turning.

I wonder what happened to make him this way. Was his personality always this way? Or did he, like a piece of fruit left on the vine, grow sour and rotten over time?

“I’m putting in my notice,” I say, proud of the lack of wobble in my voice. The strength. Until it withers and dies under Mr. Silver’s glare when he turns to face me. “To, um, quit.”

“You’re quitting.” It’s more statement than question, and when I nod, he just keeps on staring.

It’s not surprising that Mr. Silver hasn’t heard about Costa Rica. Neighborly made sure the entire town got the news about Mari and me by the morning after the LLLS meeting. But Mr. Silver isn't the type to engage in gossip—on an app or otherwise. In fact, he seems like the type to scorn the very idea of an app solely built for town gossip.

“How long will you continue to grace me with your presence?” he asks drily.

“I don’t know exactly.” When Mr. Silver continues to stare, I add, “I haven’t purchased my plane ticket, so I don’t know the dates. Two weeks?” Golly, that seems soon. Also, the longer I stay, the longer I get to live with Chevy. “Maybe a month?”

His frown, which I already thought had plumbed the deepest depths it could, deepens. “You’re not just quitting—you’re moving away?”

“I’m going to Costa Rica with the aunt I live with. Mari—you might know her? She runs the diner …” I can see by the slight wrinkle in his nose that Mr. Silver doesn't do diners.

Heaving a sigh as though the very sound of my voice pains him, Mr. Silver says, “What’s in Costa Rica?”

I’m shocked the man who has shown almost zero interest in me and has certainly never asked me a question is now asking more than one, all in a row.

I skip right over the more personal reasons. “I’m going to work with an artist—Luis Henry Aguilar. Kind of an apprenticeship.”

Mr. Silver only nods, his severe face hiding whatever his real reaction is to this. “And what about your family? Your friends?”

Thoughts of Chevy and the way his arms felt around my waist flash in my memory, and I do my best to shut them down.

It was PRETEND, I remind myself. But some deep part of me has latched on to those quick few minutes and is holding fast, like some kind of lovesick leech. I only hope I can keep it together the next time I see him. Which should be tomorrow morning, when he said he could help me move into his house.

I’m sure by then I’ll be …

Well. Probably still reliving the moment. But maybe by tomorrow I’ll be able to hide it better.

“My extended family on my mom’s side is there. Mari leaves next week, and I’ll join her sometime after.”

I swallow down an impossibly lumpy lump in my throat. Because, despite seeing a donation truck come and haul away most of her furniture earlier today, despite starting to pack up my own things, I am ostriching SUPER hard about Mari actually leaving. And about me leaving, which is why I haven’t bought my ticket yet.

“Where will you paint until you go?” Mr. Silver asks. “Isn’t your studio at her house?”

I don’t remember telling him where my studio is, but I must have. Some days, just to break the tension of his dark moods and the silence in here, I babble about anything and everything. I must have mentioned turning Mari’s garage into my studio.

What’s really funny about his question is the fact that he isn’t asking where I’m going to live once Mari leaves. Just where I’m going to paint.

“I’m not sure.” Which wouldn’t be a problem except for Tank’s paintings. Chevy’s house is small, and even if he didn’t mind me trying to make space, I’m way too messy. The man keeps his house as clean and sterile as an operating room. This is one of the details on the to-do list I keep putting off for another day.

“I have a studio you could use.” Mr. Silver says the words with ultimate casualness, like it’s not totally bananas and completely out of character for him to offer something like this. To offer anything.

I stare. Then stare some more. He … has a studio? And he’s offering it to me?

“What’s the catch?”

He looks mortally offended. “Catch?”

“I assume there’s a catch,” I say. “You haven’t wanted to sell my paintings in the gallery. You’re barely civil to me. This is actually the longest two-sided conversation we’ve ever had. I guess I just don’t understand. I thought you were run completely by AI.”

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