Chapter 10
Hoping she would come back, Harrison stayed by the fire until the flames began to die.
But he finally gave up and walked dejectedly to his end of the house, curious as to when and how it had become so important for him to kiss his housemate.
The problem was that he could not stop thinking about it, and that was Not Good.
He sprawled on his bed with his phone in hand, staring at the ceiling, trying to take his mind off it.
His knee ached in this weather, and the colder it got, the worse it got.
The forecast was predicting frigid temperatures in a day or so.
Did he have any ibuprofen? And why had Clay called twice in the last few hours? That man was annoyingly relentless.
But those were fleeting thoughts. The main thought machine in his head was still obsessing about Amy.
He had not been entirely truthful with her—he was often attracted to women younger than he.
He figured that was because of his milieu, where girls in short shorts and golf skirts milled around clubhouses.
But he really liked Amy. A lot. He liked the way she talked to him, like he wasn’t a piece of meat.
He liked what she had to say, and that it was nothing designed to entice him.
He liked that she was older and had a life to draw from and interesting perspectives.
He wanted to stick his fingers in her hair, grab onto that ass, and…
Cool it. He was doing the very thing he said not all men did.
He rolled over and reached for the book on his bedside table, the aforementioned History of the Roman Empire.
He tried to read, but his mind kept wandering.
Eventually, he gave it up and went to bed.
As he drifted to sleep, his incorrigible mind’s eye kept picturing Amy at the other end of this house, in her bed. Completely naked. Yep, he was all men.
It was sleeting when Harrison woke up the next morning. He dressed and went into the kitchen. There was no sign of dog or woman. He decided to go into the nearest small town and pick up some pastries. There wasn’t much to choose from, so he was back soon. Still no sight of Amy or Duchess.
Harrison helped himself to two of the pastries—because what was protein?
—then sat down at the dining room table to eat them with some coffee.
He mulled over his options for the day. He didn’t think he could sit here in sleet and rain all day thinking of Amy.
He knew himself, and knew he’d end up bothering her.
He wouldn’t be able to resist going to the little studio to see what she was doing.
He was annoying himself. He polished off the first pastry and called his mother.
She picked up on the first ring. “Harrison, my love! How are you?” she trilled into the phone.
“Good, Mom. How are—”
“I am so busy!” she said before he could get the question out. “I can’t believe what all must be done before we leave on our cruise. And your father is no help. You know him, he practically lives on that golf course.”
“Right,” Harrison said. So did he. He didn’t have a lot of other places to go.
“Now tell me, what are your holiday plans?” she asked. He could hear something like the sound of paper tearing in the background.
“I’m in Texas,” he said.
“Oh. Girlfriend?” she asked casually amid the sound of more paper rattling.
“Um…no. Just chilling.” She didn’t ask any questions, didn’t seem curious about why he was in Texas of all places. “What are you doing, Mom?”
“Wrapping gifts. I sent your gift to Clay, by the way, did he tell you?”
“To Clay?”
“He suggested it. He said it was easier than trying to pin you down to an address.”
Another reason to kick Clay’s ass. He had an address. He even had mail forwarding.
“I could have sent it to that condo in Florida, but you never seem to be there.”
Harrison didn’t know what to say to that. He traveled a lot, but when he didn’t, he was in his condo. He’d come to Texas just to get away. “Speaking of being somewhere, I was thinking of coming to California. I mean, when you get back from your cruise.”
“Oh, lovely! Are you playing a tournament here? That will make your father happy.”
“No, no tournament. Just to see my folks,” he said.
“Well that would be nice. I’m so sorry, Harrison, but I have to get you off the phone! We leave in two days and have so much yet to do. Love you!”
“Love you,” he said, and listened to the line go dead.
He recalled a time when she’d desperately wanted him home for the holidays, but Harrison had been out living his grand life and had made excuses.
His mother had quit waiting for him. And now here he was, staring at fifty, wanting his mother to want him home.
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” he muttered into the dead line.
He sighed and leaned back in his seat. He felt a little teary-eyed.
Everyone in his life had quit waiting for him.
Well, except Clay, who was determined to wait for him no matter what.
But honestly, Harrison couldn’t remember ever feeling so terribly alone as he did in this moment.
Maybe he was suffering from the holiday blues.
Or was it just life finally catching up to him?
Perhaps the fact that fifty was beginning to feel like a Really Big Deal?
The rain was adding to his doldrums.
He stared out the window and thought about the mom with the blind dog who was painting something. He imagined Bob Ross, which, regrettably, was his only frame of reference for art.
The ring of his phone startled him; Harrison picked it up and looked at the display. Clay. Like an alarm clock, this guy.
“Hey, boss, how’s the knee?” Clay said over some tinny Christmas music in the background when Harrison answered.
“Same as before,” Harrison said. He reached down and rubbed it. Damp days were the worst. “Where are you?”
“The mall with my girlfriend. Torture, man! Anyway, just making some calls. You’re doing your PT, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Liar,” Clay said cheerfully. “So listen, I’ve got a great opportunity for you—”
“No thanks,” Harrison said before Clay could hit him up. He didn’t like to hear about great opportunities when he was feeling sorry for himself. It completely messed with the self-pity vibe. “Now is not a good time.”
“Just hear me out, big guy,” Clay said, although Harrison was not a particularly big guy. “I’ve got a golf clinic lined up with some bigwig oil guys in Scotland. They are willing to pay a lot of dough for someone like you to look at their swing for a couple of days. You know the drill.”
Harrison did indeed know the drill—he’d done paid appearances before, where he told middle-aged men that they had a great swing and maybe watch that shoulder rotation.
His advice was probably not going to change their game, but it made them happy.
Those opportunities were a dime a dozen.
But opportunities that came with “a lot of dough” were a different story. “When?”
“You’d need to be in Scotland right after Christmas.”
“So soon? How long is the clinic?”
“A week. And seriously?” Clay asked. “You’ve got time. You’ve got nothing but time. Wait—don’t tell me that suddenly you have plans.”
“No,” Harrison said, “but—”
“Just keep doing the knee stuff,” Clay said. “You’ll be good to go by then, trust me.”
“You don’t know if that’s true.”
“Sure I do. Take a couple of days and think about it. But no more than that.”
Sometimes, Harrison didn’t like how Clay pushed him. “Fine,” he said stiffly. He didn’t like it, but he needed it.
“Great! I’ll give you a call in a couple of days,” Clay said. “Okay, gotta bounce. My girlfriend is walking toward a jewelry store and I gotta nip that in the bud.” He clicked off before Harrison could respond.
A clinic in Scotland in the dead of winter. Sounded like something Clay would dredge up during the offseason. And, he realized, he’d failed to ask just how big the bucks were for this one.
He picked up the second pastry out of sheer boredom, but hadn’t even taken a bite when he heard a commotion in the house—the slamming of a door, the sound of quick footsteps.
And then Amy sort of erupted into the dining room, donut in hand, apparently swiped from the kitchen bar on her way.
“We have a problem,” she announced before taking a bite.
“We do?” He put down the pastry.
“A big winter storm is coming.”
He gave her half a smile. “I thought you didn’t believe a big winter storm was coming.”
“I still don’t. But I heard the forecast, and what if it’s true? I’m already freezing. And these donuts won’t last forever. Come on, we gotta go.”
“Go? Go where?” he asked, confused.
“To get provisions before they have picked the shelves clean! What if the power goes out? You know how this state likes to run out of energy in the winter.”
“How the state…what?”
She did not explain. “Are you coming?”
Of course he was—he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. “Should I bring the pastries?”
Amy hesitated. Then shook her head. “We might not have room.” She hurried out.
“We might not have space for pastries?” he asked the empty space where she’d been standing.
A few minutes later, he found her at the front door, a giant tote bag over one shoulder, and Duchess tucked up under the other arm.
“I’ll put your bag in the trunk,” he offered.
“That’s okay. There’s room in my minivan.”
Harrison looked past her to where the van was sitting in the drive.
“I know it’s not snazzy, but you would not believe how much it can hold,” Amy said, sensing his objection.
“How much are we getting? The storm won’t last more than a day.”