Love In Translation

Eight

A fter another spectacular night without sleep—why waste time sleeping when he could have sex with Rheo?—Fletch yawned as he walked into the office of his favorite guide outfit in Gilmartin. Although smaller and less slick than the bigger, more established operations around town, Mick and Sam radiated authenticity and had Louie’s same can-do attitude. They worked hard, were hungry for business, and gave their clients personalized attention.

Fletch, who’d interacted with many outfits over the years, hoped they’d make a success of their fledgling business and, as they grew, hoped they’d keep the personal touch.

He stepped inside their open-plan office and immediately sensed the tension in the room. He looked from one worried face to another. “What’s the problem, guys?” he asked.

“How can we help you today, Fletch?” Sam asked, clearly trying to be professional.

Fletch appreciated the effort. “I want to hire you guys for a solo climb sometime early next week. I’d like to try Devil’s Crack.”

Mick walked to the counter where their computer sat and opened their booking program. He gave Fletch a date that suited him, then told him a bit about the route and what he could expect.

After a minute of Mick’s prepared speech, Fletch cut him off. “You can tell me later. Now, what’s the problem?”

Mick and Sam exchanged uneasy glances.

“We have a party coming in tomorrow,” Mick explained, sitting on the edge of the desk. “It’s a big party, and a booking we can’t afford to lose.”

It sounded good to him. “And?” he prompted.

“They’re from Brazil. Some of the country’s best paddlers. They want to kayak the Little White Salmon.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Their translator is ill with appendicitis, and he can’t accompany them tomorrow. If they don’t have a translator, we can’t do the safety drills, explain the route, the dangers.”

“We’ll be forced to refund them, and we can’t afford that,” Sam stated, sounding grim.

“And for some of them, this is a dream trip, one they saved money for years to do,” Mick added.

“And nobody in their group speaks English?” Fletch asked.

They shook their heads. “One or two of them speak enough to order lunch or hail a taxi, but not enough to get across the finer points of kayaking one of the most dangerous rivers in the world.”

“Google Translate?”

“Again, it’s not accurate enough,” Mick gloomily stated. “And nobody in town speaks Portuguese. We’re just going to have to cancel and take the hit.”

Mick pulled his phone out of his pocket, his face as long as a Siberian winter’s night, and Fletch shook his head. “Hold on, I think I can get a translator for you.”

“Seriously?” Mick asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” Yep, he knew Portuguese was one of the languages Rheo spoke. And if he could get Rheo to translate, he could not only save their trip, but he could maybe restore some of her confidence in her ability to translate.

“When are they arriving?”

Mick reached for a file on his desk and flipped it open. “Tomorrow. We’ll pick up the group at their hotel and be at the river by six. If you could find us a translator, we’d owe you big, and give you reduced rates for the rest of the season.”

Fletch laughed. “There’s no need to go that far,” he said. “Let me talk to my friend and I’ll give you a call. Probably within the next hour.”

Fletch headed home—when did he start thinking of the Pink House as home?—considering how best to approach Rheo.

She’d say yes, of course she would. It was a simple job and a good way for her to dip her toe back into face-to-face translating.

“No.”

Rheo looked at Fletch, horrified at his suggestion.

No way could she translate a safety briefing, not when people’s lives were at stake. What if she made a mistake and told them to go left when they should go right? What if she told them to slow down when they should speed up? She knew nothing about kayaking!

“Absolutely not,” Rheo stated, drying her hands on a kitchen towel. She’d just finished wiping the surfaces of the kitchen cabinets, a delaying tactic to avoid another translating module. There was nothing she wanted to do less.

Except translate for a group of Brazilian kayakers.

“If you don’t, their holiday will be ruined and they will have wasted their time and money,” Fletch said, putting his hands on her hips.

God, she loved it when he touched her, loved his big hands on her body. Sex with Fletch was a mind-blowing experience. Some nights his passion flirted on the sexy edge of kink; at others he slowed down, taking his time and delaying their intense orgasms. She never knew what to expect—a quickie in the living room or hours of concentrated lovemaking—and trying to work out Fletch’s mood distracted her from her increasingly worrying life-work situation.

Fletch brushed her hair off her face, his smile soft and encouraging. “Do you speak Portuguese, Rheo?”

She shrugged. “Yes.”

“On a scale of one to ten, how fluent are you?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Probably a six.”

“Because you have a habit of underestimating your talents, I’m taking that as an eight. Have you done any Portuguese-to-English translations at the UN?”

“I’m in the Spanish section, Fletch,” Rheo told him, seeing his trap and trying to avoid it.

Fletch just lifted one eyebrow, a demand for her to answer his question. At times like this, she caught glimpses of the expedition leader: cool, calm, and focused. He wasn’t going to let her avoid the question.

“I’ve translated Portuguese before,” she reluctantly admitted, “but it was ages ago!”

“If it’s good enough for the UN, it’s good enough for the kayakers. Stop being a wuss, Rheo, and do this for them. Two Gilmartin guides, friends of mine, are going to lose a shit ton of money if they don’t pull this off.”

Arrgh! Rheo tossed her hands in the air, feeling like a bitch for saying no. Fletch made it sound so easy—just stand there and translate the words. But if she got it wrong, there could be real-world repercussions.

“They are experienced kayakers, Rheo,” Fletch said, reading her mind. “They would’ve attended many, many safety briefings and watched countless videos of the run. The safety briefing must happen because (a) it’s a good thing to do and (b) for legal cover, so they’ll know if you say something that doesn’t sound right. They’ll ask for clarification. You’re making more of this than what it should be.”

Rheo thought back to when her words disappeared as she translated for the Spanish trade minister, and the moisture in her mouth dried up. “But what happens if all my words go poof again?”

Fletch shook his head, his face showing no hint of doubt. “They won’t, Rhee. Trust yourself.”

So much harder to do than he thought. Fletch, having climbed mountains and hacked his way through jungles, trekked through blizzards, and solo-climbed sheer rock walls, did not doubt himself. Rheo wished for a smidgen of his self-confidence.

“Your words won’t disappear, and you will be fine,” Fletch told her, bending his head to kiss her on the ticklish spot where her neck met her jaw. “We’ll leave here at four.”

She jerked back, her eyes wide. “In the morning ?”

“No, in the afternoon, because the run takes a few hours, and they want to do it when it’s dark.”

She narrowed her eyes at his sarcasm. “I don’t do mornings,” she told him. Why would she want to leave her nice, warm, comfortable bed at such a ludicrous hour? Fletch rolled his eyes and she relented. “Okay, okay! I’ll go into town, do the briefing, and come back to bed.”

Fletch’s mouth twitched with amusement. “The briefing will be at the river, at least an hour’s drive from here,” he told her.

Rheo sighed. Of course it was. “I’m not good early in the morning,” Rheo told Fletch, thinking he needed the warning. “I haven’t started my transition from swamp witch to human yet.”

He grinned. “I’ve seen you at that time of the morning and you aren’t that scary, Rheo Whitlock.”

Ha! Maybe not, but then again, he kissed her awake to make love to her, not to boot her out of bed to go adventuring. It was a very different set of circumstances...

Rheo had told the truth: she was dreadful early in the morning when sex wasn’t on the table. She’d bitched when he shook her awake and complained bitterly about being forced to find clothes and brush her teeth at an hour that, she told him three or four times, was only fit for psychopaths and lunatics. He encouraged her to drink lots of coffee while he drove her to the river, and she slowly transformed from grump to gorgeous girl.

But, as she’d told him, so much coffee made her need to pee, and he saw her mood plummet when he informed her that her only option was to go behind a tree. After splashing water on her hands, she approached the excited group and dredged up a smile for Mick and Sam, gradually thawing under their effusive thanks.

She still wasn’t happy with him. Fletch wasn’t fazed—she’d return to normal sooner or later.

Sitting on a log, his long legs stretched out in front of him, Fletch listened as Rheo translated for Mick, her speech becoming more rapid and her tone more confident as time passed. He wished he was preparing to kayak the river, but he’d promised Carrie he’d wait for her. He could do anything else, Carrie told him, but she wanted them to kayak the Little White Salmon together. But, damn, his friend was taking her time to get here. On the plus side, the longer Carrie stayed away, the more time he got with Rheo...

Fletch sipped from his thermos cup, enjoying the good hot coffee. Mick and Sam provided flasks of coffee and packed breakfast for their clients, and they’d tossed in provisions for him and Rheo. There was nothing better than hot coffee, a river running behind him, and the sound of birds informing each other they’d survived the night.

Laughter from the kayakers drifted over to him. Rheo looked delighted that she’d made them laugh, and he smiled when she replied to one of the younger kayaker’s quips. She looked happy and confident. He could easily imagine her working at the UN, dressed in a business suit, her hair tamed and her concentration fierce as she listened, translated, and listened some more. Working with languages, and people, was her passion, just like exploring the harder, rougher, and more remote places of the Earth was his.

Pride in her bubbled up. He could see that it was as hard for her to do this as she’d feared. She’d told him about her work screwup, but something else had happened to make her so skittish. He recognized Rheo’s strength and couldn’t believe one incident had sent her running to a town she didn’t like, forcing her to hide out in her grandmother’s house.

What happened? What pushed her train off the rails? He wanted to know. Every day, his curiosity increased, and his fascination rose. It should be the other way around. Normally, by this point, he’d be bored and wanting to move on. Not necessarily to another woman but to another place and another experience. Each trip felt like a victory against his past limitations. But Rheo made him want to stay.

And stay.

Being so different, he couldn’t understand their connection, which was mental as well as physical. Rheo’d told him about her life in New York City—it sounded a little bland and a little too regimented for him—and she looked horrified when he told her he’d encountered a sixteen-foot anaconda deep in the Amazon basin. If she didn’t like peeing behind a bush, she’d hate camping and wouldn’t survive the first day of one of his trips. In fairness, if she took him to a book reading or a ballet recital in the city, he’d be asleep within ten minutes.

Opposites supposedly attracted, but Fletch and Rheo were an extreme case. Luckily, they accepted their relationship couldn’t go anywhere. There was no chance of anything permanent. He didn’t do forever, and Rheo had enough issues with her adventurous family without her adding an explorer lover to the list. No, they both understood their time together at the Pink House was an anomaly, a fracture in space and time. Like hot water on a camp stove, it wasn’t destined to last.

He liked it that way...

Didn’t he?

Later that morning, Rheo and Fletch sat at a window booth in Abi’s diner. They were her first customers of the day and were enjoying their second breakfasts. Well, Fletch was enjoying his, but Rheo couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for fresh fruit salad and unsweetened yogurt. She’d become more conscious of the weight she’d put on over the past few months, and sleeping with Fletch, whose body could make angels weep, made her more self-conscious than usual.

Oh, she wasn’t fat, and Fletch loved her body—he told her so often—but him cooking healthy and tasty meals for her made her want to embrace a healthier lifestyle.

Rheo had silently vowed to start eating better and maybe getting some exercise. She’d even looked at some workout videos on YouTube, thinking she’d try one when Fletch next left the house. Ser pan comido. It should be a cinch. Millions did it all the time. They had to be easier and more fun than they looked.

Rheo speared a strawberry and lifted it to her lips, wishing she’d ordered pancakes loaded with nuts and chocolate syrup. Why couldn’t loads of carbs be healthy? Why did the good stuff taste like crap? Why couldn’t she crave carrots? These were deeply important questions to which she’d never get an answer.

“I’m going to rebuild the gazebo in the garden.”

Rheo lowered her strawberry. “Why?” she asked, taking in his out-of-the-blue statement.

Sorting out the gazebo was on her to-do list. She’d made a note to have the wood removed. She’d buy her grandmother a bottle of her favorite perfume as an apology gift. If Paddy ever forgave her... Her grandmother wasn’t the forgiving sort. She didn’t give second chances, especially if she believed she’d been lied to. The fact that she still wasn’t talking to Rheo’s father, Ed, after more than a year was testament to that.

Not telling Paddy she was living in her house would be, in her grandmother’s books, a pretty big offense.

Fletch loaded his fork, lifted it to his mouth, and chewed. “I like to build stuff, and I’m terrified you’ll rebuild it on your own. You’re crap at woodwork.”

A fair assessment of her carpentry skills. “I agree. I’ll stick to languages,” she told him. She rested her forearms on the table and wrinkled her nose. “I’m pretty exhausted. You owe me for making me get up so early.”

“Thank you for doing it.” He smiled at her. “You were great today. I’m seriously impressed.”

Rheo swore her insides lit up like Christmas lights. When had she last heard she was amazing? Paddy occasionally praised her as a kid, but not anymore. As Paddy informed her, adults shouldn’t need constant validation.

“It wasn’t half as hard as I thought it would be,” Rheo admitted.

“Anticipation is always worse than the actual event,” he said. “The river is never as deep and scary, the mountain never as hard, the blizzard never as cold as you think.” He shook his head. “Actually, the blizzard I experienced on the Antarctic Plateau was fucking cold. There’s nothing worse than trying to erect a tent in a howling wind when it’s minus sixty.”

“I’d just collapse and let the polar bears eat me.”

“There aren’t any polar bears in Antarctica,” Fletch informed her, smiling.

“You know what I mean,” Rheo muttered, as the doorbell above the diner’s door jingled, indicating the arrival of another early-morning customer.

Fletch grinned at her, and he took a long time to pull his eyes away from hers. She knew he was remembering the hot sex they’d had in the shower last night, or maybe he was thinking of another position for them to try later.

It was a revelation to discover how much she loved sex, the act of giving and receiving pleasure. Fletch was an incredible lover, and she was far better than she was before. Less self-conscious and not so uptight.

Naked or clothed, she loved looking at him, and could do it for the longest time. His face was rugged, but intelligence sparked in his eyes. He fascinated her. If he were anyone other than a nomadic explorer, she might think she was falling for him...just a little.

Fletch looked away, and Rheo followed his gaze. Abi stood next to their table, a loaded kid’s size waffle in her hands. Abi whipped away Rheo’s fruit salad and dumped the plate in front of her.

“Nobody comes into my diner and plays with their food,” Abi told her.

Her friend instructed Fletch to scoot up, and when he did, she sat opposite Rheo and placed her folded arms on the table. “Why are you awake so early, Whitlock? You feeling all right?”

Rheo told Fletch to explain and attacked her waffle, groaning when the combination of the crispy base, toasty nuts, and dark chocolate hit her tongue. Fletch told her about their morning and Rheo met Abi’s curious gaze.

“So, does this mean you’re ready to go back to work?” Abi demanded. “And are you over that hot-mic, viral-video thing?”

Rheo widened her eyes at her, and Abi winced. She, like Carrie, spoke first and thought later.

“How’s the waffle?” she asked Rheo, trying to recover. “They’re good, right?”

Rheo appreciated her attempt at distraction. She cut off a small bite and held out her fork to Fletch. “Try it. I guarantee it’s the best waffle you’ll ever taste.”

Fletch took the fork and chewed. He agreed it was excellent as he pushed his empty plate to the side. “What hot-mic thing?” he asked.

Damn, he wasn’t easily distracted. Abi lifted her eyebrows, silently asking whether Rheo would explain. She didn’t have to—Fletch wasn’t entitled to her secrets. She’d told him more about her past than he’d told her about his...

Oh, he’d talked about the funny and not-so-funny things that happened on his many trips, and enthralled her with his descriptions of far-flung places. He was always, always interesting to listen to. But she didn’t know why he’d chosen this life, why he did what he did, and what pushed him into a transient, nomadic life. She knew nothing about his childhood.

She wasn’t an open book, but he was an impenetrable vault.

“Just tell him, Rhee,” Abi said.

Rheo flushed, embarrassed. She’d not only humiliated herself, she’d dragged her boss and the UN Translation Services under a hot, uncomfortable spotlight.

“Well?” Fletch asked, leaning forward. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Yeah, are you going to tell him or not, Rheo?” Abi demanded, clearly enjoying their battle of wills.

Rheo glared at her. Whose side was she on?

“It’s not a big deal,” Abi told her. “Maybe if he sees it, he’ll agree, and you can relax a little.”

Fat chance of that happening.

Fletch tapped his finger against his coffee mug, clearly impatient. Rheo, annoyed with him and with Abi, accessed the viral video on her phone and handed her phone to Fletch.

Rheo didn’t need to see the clip; it was burned into her memory. During a break in the General Assembly meeting, the cameras in the rotunda filmed the speaker, quietly talking to her aide. There was no noise until her voice, ten seconds in, came through the speakers, crystal clear.

“The damned idiots! Jesus, this isn’t rocket science. The planet is dying. Why can’t we agree on that? Anyone who denies climate change exists is a grade-A asshole in my book, What? What’s wrong? Oh shit!”

If Fletch smiled even a little, she’d stab him between the eyes with her fork. He wasn’t allowed to smile while he watched the worst moment of her life, the catalyst for everything going wrong in her career.

His eyes crinkled, and Rheo tightened the grip on her fork. “So, how did it happen?” he asked, passing her phone back.

Rheo gestured to Abi to explain.

“When translating, Rheo works in a soundproof booth. She was the lead translator on that day. The chair spoke in Spanish, Rheo translated into English, and the other translators translated from English to French, or English to Arabic...got it?”

Fletch nodded.

“When an interpreter is not actively translating, you’re supposed to switch the mic off,” Abi explained.

“And Rheo didn’t,” Fletch said. He shrugged and looked at Rheo. “You were right though. Climate denier politicians are a bunch of assholes.”

Rheo groaned. “Yeah, but you can see how insulting UN General Assembly members wasn’t a smart career move.”

“Rheo was sanctioned,” Abi told Fletch. Too much information, Abs, thanks. “That’s translating speak for saying she was disciplined, but they never released the name of the translator. The video went viral, but no one associated it with Rheo.”

“Except my boss, my boss’s boss, his boss, and all my colleagues,” Rheo muttered. “Nobody but them.”

Abi mimed a violinist playing. “You didn’t lose your job, Rheo.”

No, but it did start her on a spiral of self-doubt. The spiral widened and grew until she could barely function. And the more she tried to control her perfect, placid, and predictable life, the more the spiral intensified, turning into a whirlwind, then a tornado. Eventually, anxiety and self-doubt caused a crippling paralysis, enough to make her blank out on her next important assignment.

“I’m sorry, Rheo,” Fletch told her, placing his hand on hers. He rubbed the inside of her wrist with his thumb. “You don’t like being out of control or failing, do you?”

“Does anyone?” she asked, trying to be flippant and missing it by a mile.

Abi left the booth and bent to kiss Rheo’s cheek. Her lips brushed her ear and Rheo heard Abi’s instruction to talk to him, dammit . Rheo pushed her half-eaten waffle away. She stared out the window onto Main Street. At this early hour, the roads were empty, and lovelier for it. It was a pretty town... Not her town, of course, but still quaint. And charming in its own way.

“So, you got disciplined, and then what happened?”

Rheo sighed, annoyed. “How come I have to answer all your questions, but you don’t answer any of mine?”

“I do,” he told her, sounding firm. “Think about it.”

Rheo tried to recall Fletch refusing to answer a direct question. He hadn’t. He hadn’t volunteered any information, but he never ignored a direct question. Damn, how annoying.

“What made you want to be an explorer?” she demanded. He’d opened the door and she intended to walk through.

“I spent two months in the hospital when I was fifteen and was housebound for another nine. I escaped into books about expeditions and adventurers, real and fictional. I vowed I would explore the world one day, and nothing would hold me back.”

Oh...oh, wow . Fletch was so vital, energy crackled off him, and she couldn’t imagine him being sick for so long, living without any spark.

“Did you have cancer?” she quietly asked.

He shook his head. “I got strep throat, then I developed rheumatic fever. I got over that but couldn’t shake the extreme tiredness, joint and muscle pain. They eventually diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome.”

He rubbed his jaw, then the back of his neck. “When I was sick with CFS, I felt confined and hemmed in, by where I lived, my staid parents, and my illness. I promised myself I’d never be that person again. I developed a profound need to chase freedom and to see what was over the horizon.”

Fletch lifted his coffee mug, sipped, and his piercing stare pinned her to her seat. “My turn... So, what happened after you were disciplined?”

He wasn’t letting this go. “I choked, I guess. I started overthinking and overanalyzing, and I couldn’t put it behind me. How can I make you understand?” She hesitated, trying to find an analogy that worked. “Have you had a cracked tooth?”

He nodded.

“Your tongue keeps going to it, right? That’s how it was with me. I kept niggling at it, and the more attention I gave my mistakes, the more I screwed up. Anything and everything made me second-guess myself, and my work suffered. I was corrected twice during a live translating session, was weepy, and couldn’t concentrate.”

“But why did you flame out so quickly? How did you go from making a few mistakes to needing to take six months off? I’m curious about your lack of... I don’t want to upset or offend you...”

After all this, she could take it. Her hide was marginally thicker these days. “Go on.”

“I’m wondering why you weren’t more resilient, why you couldn’t accept the mistake and shrug it off. Why couldn’t you learn from it and move on?”

Rheo thought she might as well tell him. Maybe if she explained it to him, it would make more sense to her.

“It’s because I don’t make mistakes,” she replied. She waved her hands in the air when she noticed his frown. “I’m not perfect, that’s not what I’m saying. I plan my life to ensure I make as few mistakes as possible, and when I do mess up, the mistakes aren’t big ones. I’ve spent a lot of time formulating the life I want, working out the steps, the desired outcomes, how to climb over or skirt any obstacles in my way.”

“That’s a project management plan, not a life.”

Precisely. And it worked.

“If I know what to expect, what comes next, then I don’t make mistakes.” Rheo dropped her shoulders and rolled them back, trying to ease the tension in her tight muscles. “Also, when you live a rigid life, when you do what is expected of you, live a life in a certain way, you don’t have to cope with the unexpected. I don’t like the unexpected. I find it extremely stressful.”

Rheo played with the leather and copper bracelets on Fletch’s strong wrist. “Our childhoods made us who we were. You felt hemmed in. I was given too much freedom, and my childhood was nomadic and unstable. My parents, like you, thrive on the unexpected.”

“While my life is exciting, a lot of what I do is carefully planned. While it looks like I—and my crew—take huge risks, we’ve calculated the odds, and they’re heavily in favor of us succeeding. I don’t have a death wish, Rheo.”

Maybe not, but he did spend most of his time dancing with nature, and everyone knew how tempestuous and fickle she could be.

“Thank God for Paddy. I went to live with her when I started high school. I look up to her a lot. She was, is, demanding and has high standards. She fully supported my dreams for a stable life, a different life from my parents’.”

“Keep talking, Rhee. I like listening to you.”

Okay then. “After making me promise I would use my education and that I wouldn’t follow in my parents’ footsteps, Paddy paid for me to go to college. Her firstborn son was the perfect one, a lawyer who wanted to get into politics, but he died young. She wanted her other sons to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, and didn’t bank on getting a missionary and a wanderer.”

“How do your parents fund their lifestyle?” Fletch asked, stroking the inside of her wrist. “It’s not easy to earn money when your life is spent on the road.”

As she knew. Her mom and dad had joined the van-life movement before the age of digital nomads, internet entrepreneurs, and online selling. “They bartered and traded, and my dad took odd jobs and my mom sold generic landscape paintings on street corners. I presume they are still doing much of the same.”

But what would they do when they got too old to flit about? If Paddy was to be believed, they were banking on an inheritance from her. That might happen, but there was a good chance Rheo would have to rent a place for them and pay their bills when they were old. She’d tried to talk to them about their retirement plans once, ages ago, but Ed and Gail lived in the present and paid no attention to the future.

“The van-life movement is so different now than it was when your folks started,” Fletcher commented. “It’s still a pretty cool life though.”

“As you should know,” she stated, wincing at the shrill note in her voice. “You live in a van, right?”

Fletcher’s eyes cooled and his voice hardened. “Did you do some internet research, Rheo?” he asked, his tone silky but cold. “And, for accuracy, I live in a tiny house.”

“It’s on wheels, right?” Rheo pulled her hand away from his and leaned back. “You can pick it up and move wherever the hell you want to go.”

She knew she sounded bitter and resentful. Fletch had the right to own what he wanted, live life the way he wanted to... She knew that, she did . But every similarity between him and her parents was the swing of a wrecking ball through her soul. Connections between them dredged up her insecurities and had her wanting to check the eviction clause on her lease and the balance on her savings accounts to make sure none of her money was missing. That the world was the right way forward.

“Currently, my house, all 350 square feet of it, sits at the end of a friend’s massive property. I rent the land from him because I don’t see the point of owning a property and paying taxes on it when I’m never there.”

Rheo rubbed her fingers across her forehead, feeling caught out and clumsy. Her parents and their source of income—along with her father’s demand to see Paddy’s will—were her nuclear hot buttons.

Should she apologize? She caught the annoyance in Fletch’s eyes and decided not to add fuel to the fire. But, damn, was speaking without thinking something she did now?

The waitress walked over, handed him the bill, and took his card. She swiped it, frowned, and sent Fletch a pained smile. “I’m so sorry, sir, there seems to be a problem with your card.”

Fletch took his card back, puzzled. Embarrassed for him, Rheo touched his hand with her fingers. “I left my wallet at home, so I can’t pay, but Abi will let me pay later.”

He flipped it over and looked at the date. “It’s not expired. Why isn’t it working?”

“You probably missed a payment, or you’ve maxed it out.”

Fletch’s hot glare held enough heat to burn her to a crisp. What? If it walked like a duck, talked like a duck...

“Thanks for that.”

Oh God, he sounded pissed. Fletch flipped open his wallet, took out some cash, and handed it over with a hefty tip. He smiled at the waitress, who looked as uncomfortable as Rheo felt.

“There you go,” he told her.

She smiled and nodded. “No problem, Mr. Wright. Thanks for the tip.”

Fletch stood and looked at Rheo, his expression remote.

Shit, why had she said that? She’d insulted his living arrangements and then made assumptions about his finances. This was what happened when she delved into her past, when she allowed it to mess with her head. Where Fletch lived and how he managed his money had nothing to do with her.

Rheo got to her feet and tucked her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. Fletch waited for her to proceed, but Rheo told him she’d see him outside, as she wanted to say goodbye to Abi.

Rheo scuttled around the counter to where Abi stood.

“Why is Fletch looking like a rattlesnake bit him in the balls, Rhee?” her friend demanded, keeping her voice low.

“Oh, he’s pissed because his credit card was declined. I offered to arrange for him to pay you later. He paid in cash.”

“Still doesn’t explain why he’s pissed,” Abi murmured. “What did you say?”

She rocked on her heels. “I might’ve said something about it being maxed out or him not making a payment on time.”

“Dear God, Rheo, who gave you permission to be let out on your own?” Abi muttered, shaking her head.

Rheo waved her words away. “Oh, please, it happens occasionally for everyone, but more often with people like him !”

Abi slapped her hands on her hips. “He’s a semi-famous documentary maker, Rheo. He’s not Bear Grylls, but he’s not a drifter!”

Rheo groaned and lifted her crossed arms to cover her eyes. “I know, I know!” She lowered her arms and pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “Okay, maybe my reaction was pure reflex, because it happened so often with my parents. Honestly, I was always shocked if the charge went through the first time.”

“I think you’re being seriously judgmental, Whitlock! Maybe there’s simply an issue with his card, and it got rejected. Shit like that happens... all the time .”

Yes, she accepted that. “But I also understand people who chase freedom, Abi. The people I met on the road lived a hand-to-mouth existence, and they paid no attention to their finances. All that was important was what was over the horizon. He’s a nice guy, but I don’t think we can be anything other than bed buddies,” she told Abi, ignoring the surge of disappointment flooding her system. “I could never be with someone who doesn’t have a backup plan, someone with no savings, who can’t budget.”

Abi’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, you are such a snob!”

No, she wasn’t. She simply understood her levels of tolerance. She couldn’t handle someone who wasn’t financially responsible. Things like this hurtled her back to the insecurity of her childhood, as evidenced by her reaction to his card not going through. Fletch was a great lover, but he’d be a disastrous boyfriend or long-term partner.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she told Abi, not wanting to argue anymore.

They might connect on many levels, and Rheo adored her, but Abi didn’t understand how every cell in her body rebelled against her parents’ free-spirited way of life. To someone who liked coloring inside the lines, their—and Fletch’s—lifestyle was terrifying.