Gwen didn’t lift her head off the table but held out her hand. Old Man Jameson took it in his dry thin one, shook it and, she thought, laughed.
When his fingers took on a shade that was more frostbitten white than really cold red, he’d left the stadium for his office, fumbled with the lock on the door, and managed to get inside to unthaw in the dark. He blinked when the light went on.
"Cher?"
He smiled to himself and turned toward the doorway and the woman who would be blamed for sabotaging him, if Gwen had really loved him. He studied her pretty face, so Gallic with its sharp features, and so expressionless. A dozen images of Gwen, happy, irritated, in crisis, in passion, in sleep, came to him, but he pushed them aside.
"I am off now. Just now. My mère and père have asked me home."
Bailed her out again. "I’m happy for you, Nicola."
"You will not go with me?" She asked, but he could see her discomfort, or could guess at it since she didn’t like to wrinkle her face with feeling.
He’d make her wonder a minute before he put her out of her misery. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three. He glanced out the window and tried to feel something for the snowflakes drifting down. Nothing. He heard her let out the small impatient huff she usually reserved for her parents. He turned, smiled. "I’m going to stay here, I think."
She briefly took his hands in what felt like an afterthought. "I am here then to say goodbye. And also my passport, naturellement. You were watching these things when we arrived."
He nodded and slid open the top drawer of his desk, reaching for a silver key in the midst of a nest of rubber bands. Behind him he could hear Nicola poking around in his boxes with the lack of effort he’d once thought charming. He keyed the bottom drawer and opened it to her passport and the keys to the Paris apartment. He had watched out for her and maybe taken better care than he’d given himself credit for. It didn’t escape him that he’d figured something out just in time for nothing. He was like the guy who finally develops the skills for basketball, and it’s football season. He was ready for a spring sport, but in his life, it was fall.
He turned to Nicola, the passport and keys in his hand, and felt relieved that they weren't for him. "Here you go." He saw that she’d managed to unpack the top layer of every box. It was like turning your back on an irritated but not very thorough cat.
She dropped what was in her hand, a battered green notebook that took the fall as if it were just another of many. He moved to it, felt Nicola tug the passport out of his hand. He opened his palm to give her the keys and reached for Gwen’s journal.
Smoothing the cover, he pressed down the bend at the corner, and looked up to see Ty in the doorway, standing half-turned towards the hall with his eyes glancing towards the exit. Aussie boy didn't have much fight in him, but Max would bet a hundred bucks he excelled at flight. The kid hadn't been worried about Max wanting to poach Gwen, but seemed stressed about a potential caveman fight over Nicola. Dingo-got-my-baby boy was an idiot.
Max held out his free hand, shook Ty’s before he could do anything but react out of habit.
Behind him, he felt Nicola’s growing impatience. He was doing her a favor, slowing down her exit. Any delay in their take-off would give her another minute of Ty sticking around to use her. Nicola jostled by, tilted her head at Ty. "You have put the valises to the car?" She didn’t wait for him to answer, and Max felt her attention turn his way. He tried not to wonder what she wanted next, but she just kissed him lightly on each cheek, "Adieu," and set off down the hallway, leaving Aussie boy behind.
Max tilted his head at Ty just as Nicola had. "Bonne chance."
Ty shot off after her, and Max turned back to his office and the scattered boxes. In his hands, he held Gwen’s college life. He should put the journal back in the nearest box, and seal it away for another twenty years in a masking-taped time capsule. He tossed it in