24. Damiano
“You shouldn’t come out here all alone.” I force myself to take a deep breath so I don’t lose my shit over the risks Paige takes.
“I’m not alone. You’re here.”
“I’m here this time. But you usually come out here alone.”
“It’s fine. It’s perfectly safe here. Families picnic here, people jog with their dogs here.”
“Strange men climb into your unlocked car here.”
She smiles at me, bites her lip. “I seem to recall dragging that strange man home, tying him to my couch, then making him do unspeakable things to me. So maybe it’s those strange men who shouldn’t be out here all alone.”
“I happen to enjoy those unspeakable things and want more of them.” But that’s not the point. “Promise me you won’t come here without me ever again. I mean it, Paige.”
“I promise. Plus it’s nice to have someone else to carry the box.”
Paige decided that Tango is ready to be released. I’m actually surprised she isn’t trying to keep him. But she insisted he’d be happier here, with unlimited dirt and grass.
“We’re here. This is my usual release spot.”
I look around. It’s a small clearing, a couple of boulders surrounded by some trees. There’s a stream a few meters away.
“Looks like a nice spot.”
“I released Charlie and Sierra in this tree.” Paige walks over to a pine, leans against the trunk and looks up, like she expects to see them. She blows a kiss up the tree. “And I released Oscar in that one.” She points to the next tree. She stares into its canopy.
She stands there a long minute. Pretty sure she’s stalling.
“I don’t think Tango can climb trees.” I want to lighten her mood.
She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. She walks over to take the box I’m holding. She sits on the boulder with it on her lap. “I like to sit here with them for a few minutes. Are we in a hurry?”
I shake my head.
“Thanks.” Her voice cracks. She sounds so sad.
“You don’t have to release him today.”
“He’s ready.”
I’m standing here, doing nothing except watching Paige whisper into the box, tears gliding down her cheeks.
I need to make her happy. “Maybe his shell needs more time to finish healing? I don’t think it’s fully knit back together.”
She looks up at me, her lips puffy and swollen. “It’s fully knit, Dom. I just need a few minutes to say goodbye to him.”
She’s sad. My Paige is sad. I need to fix it. “Another week wouldn’t hurt.”
She shakes her head. “He’s ready. He deserves to be happy.” She sobs. “He deserves to find a mate and eat bugs. He can’t do all that at your place. It’s time.”
I have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do.
“Uh. I’ll wait over there.” I motion with my head to another clearing, but she doesn’t look up. I tuck behind a tree. What the fuck am I supposed to do?
I dial Salvo.
“You’re on speaker. Rob’s here, too.”
I speak quietly so she won’t hear. “I need help. It’s an emergency.”
“Fuck,” Salvo mutters. “Where? We’re on our way.”
Rob laughs. “Sit the fuck down, man. No way he’s asking us for that kind of help. He never asks for that kind of help. What’s going on, Dom?”
“It’s Paige.”
“Something happen?” Rob sounds genuinely concerned.
“She’s crying. What do I do?”
“Why is she crying?”
“Because she’s sad. What do I do?”
Salvo chimes in. “Did you make her sad?”
“No. Of course not.”
“So then hurt whoever made her sad.”
“If a person made her sad, they’d be dead already. It’s her turtle. She’s releasing it, and now she’s crying.”
“So tell her not to release it.”
“I tried that. Didn’t work. What else?”
Silence. Just the quiet gurgle of the stream and Paige’s soft sobs.
“Rob, what do you do when Lyndie’s sad?”
“Usually just buy her some shit to cheer her up. Or send our mom to go visit her.”
Neither of those will help here. I peek around the tree to see Paige putting Tango down on the ground in front of a bush. “What else you got?”
“Uh. . . Fuck, I’m drawing a blank, man. Can you ignore it and wait for her to stop crying?”
“Her being sad is making me want to do recklessly violent and irrational things, but none of that will make her less sad. So no, I can’t ignore it or I’ll go insane. Salvo? You know women. What do I do?”
He exhales loudly. “They’re never sad around me. My mere presence fills them immeasurable amounts of joy.”
“Fuck you.”
Salvo laughs. “What about. . . could you tell her a joke?”
“A joke?”
“Yeah, like, I don’t know. Something funny to make her laugh?”
“Maybe. But I don’t know any jokes.”
“How about, ‘knock-knock’ then she says ‘who’s there’ then you say ‘Brittany’ and then she says ‘Brittany who ’ and then you pause and then you say ‘oops, I did it again.’”
That doesn’t make any sense at all. “I don’t get it.”
Rob agrees. “I don’t get it either.”
“Chicks will get it.”
“You’ve used this on a girl?”
Salvo makes a sort of noncommittal sound. “Do you have any better ideas?”
“No. I have no fucking clue what to do.” I say the joke back to him to make sure I got it right. I take a deep breath. “This better work.” I hang up the call.
I step out from behind the tree. Paige is sitting on the boulder again, her head in her hands. I take a step toward her.
She looks up, red and puffy and crushed and sad.
“Kno—” I stop. No fucking way I’m telling her a knock-knock joke.
Paige is looking up at me, waiting for me to say something. Anything.
Anything other than a fucking knock-knock joke.
I hold up one finger, signaling for her to wait a sec. I slowly step back behind the tree.
I call Salvo again.
“That was quick. She like the joke?”
“I can’t tell her a joke right now.”
“It might have worked,” Rob says.
Pretty sure it wouldn’t have. “Are any of the girls around? Who’s nearby?”
“Uh. . . Hey, Megan? Come here, babe.”
“Hey, guys. What’s going on?”
“What can Damiano do to cheer up his girl?”
“Did he make her sad?”
“No.”
“Then that’s easy. Just hold her.”
“Hold her and then what?”
“Hold her, and that’s it.” She says it like we should understand what the fuck she’s talking about.
Rob must be confused, too. “How does that solve anything?”
“Are you being serious or are you guys fucking with me?”
“Dead serious.”
“He doesn’t need to solve anything. He just needs to hold her. Let her cry. Let her sniffle into his shirt.”
“That’s it? Just hold her? That doesn’t fix anything.”
“Sometimes that fixes everything.”
“Just hold her and nothing else?”
“Guys, you’re overthinking this. Women are easy. A hug. That’s it.”
I let out a relieved exhale. “I can do that. I can definitely do that. Thanks, Meg.”
I end the call and walk back to Paige.
I step over the back of the rock to sit behind her wrapping my arms around her tight. The rock is cold as fuck and jagged. I have no clue how she’s managed to sit here for the past twenty minutes. But as soon as she leans back into me, her silky hair pressing into my face, I forget about the rock poking my ass.
“We should get going.” Her voice catches on her breath.
“If you want to stay longer, we can stay.”
“Okay, yeah.”