“The T-shirt will cover you,” he said. “And the pants have a drawstring. Don’t worry. There won’t be any fashion police around. We’re going on a picnic.”
“A picnic?”
“It seems like a good night for it,” he said. “There’s a full moon, after all. Go on. Change.”
“What the hell?” I laughed and turned to rummage for his gym bag, then dragged it back into the front with me.
As he’d said, I found a black T-shirt with the Destiny logo and a pair of plain, gray athletic pants. I put the pants on first, then tied them as tight as possible. Even then, I had to roll the waist over a couple of times, and then do the same to the legs, so that I wouldn’t trip when we walked.
“I don’t have shoes,” I pointed out.
“More’s the adventure,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.
I shrugged out of his jacket, then raised an eyebrow when I saw Tyler paying more attention to me than the road.
He focused on driving as I tugged his T-shirt on over my head, breathing deep of his familiar, woody scent.
“Just for the record,” he said, casting a sideways glance in my direction as he broke the silence. “I haven’t had a lover in a very long time. A lot of women I’ve fucked, but no lovers.” He turned his head and held my eyes. “In case you were curious.”
“Oh. Okay.” I glanced down at the bags of food at my feet, and realized that I couldn’t quite suppress the smile that was blooming.
I cleared my throat. “So, you do pick some interesting surprises. First the, um, place,” I said, and had him chuckling. “Now hotdogs. I haven’t had a picnic with hotdogs since I helped my dad move to Texas a few years ago.”
“They’re big on hotdogs in the Lone Star State?”
“Probably,” I said. “But Daddy moved to Galveston—it’s an island. And there was a festival with a bonfire. So hotdogs and marshmallows were the thing. It was fun. The kind of thing we used to do all the time, but now …” I trailed off with a shrug.
“Texas is a long way from home,” he said.
“Yeah.” I flashed a quick smile. “Sorry. A brief moment of melancholy. I miss him.”
“Your mom not big on hotdogs?”
“My mom died a few years ago.” The words hung flat, and I turned to look out the window. I really didn’t need her in my head. Not right now.
He reached over and gently took my hand. “No one else?”
I thought about it, but there really wasn’t. I loved my partner, Hernandez, but picnicking with him and his wife wasn’t exactly the same. And Candy would rather scrub toilets than sit outside if she wasn’t in an amphitheater with a hot band playing on stage.
“I guess not,” I said, turning to look at him. “Tough break, huh? No one to picnic with.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to meet mine. “There’s someone now,” he said, making my heart melt just a little.
We rode in silence, through the darkened city dotted with lights, until he finally pulled over near the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt, then killed the engine.
“Can you park here?” I asked, but he only grinned.
“Let’s walk,” he said.
I recognized Michigan Avenue and I knew we were near the museum campus, so I assumed this was Grant Park. But it wasn’t any place I’d been before, and I squinted at the odd shapes that rose up in the distance as we crossed over the grass.
“All right,” I finally said as the forms became clearer in the moonlight. “Why are we walking toward a crowd of headless men?”
“I’m not entirely sure they are men,” Tyler said. “They’re the Agora. You haven’t seen them before?”
“Indiana, remember? I’ve been to Chicago a few times, but mostly for work. Once for tea at the Palm Court with my dad for my sixteenth birthday. A few times to the museums. Other than that, no tourist stuff.”
“One hundred and six headless and armless men,” Tyler said. “The city brought them here just shy of a decade ago.”