moment for me. Wasn’t I so badass in that moment?”
“You were,” I said, still taking it in.
“That might have been my life peak,” he said then, blinking. “It might have been all downhill from that day.”
“I thought you were talking about when we first met here. At Kempner.”
“Oh. No. But I played it cool then, too.”
“Yeah,” I said, “kinda more like ‘ice-cold.’”
He nodded, like Yeah. “I’ve never been great at gauging that stuff. And now I’m a tough guy all the time, so it’s even harder.”
A moment of quiet, then he added, “But, yes. It would be safe to say that I had a thing for you. Have a thing for you.”
Some of it had to be real at least, right? The drugs couldn’t make him remember something he didn’t remember.
“At Andrews?” I had to ask. “You had a thing for me?”
“Oh, yeah. So bad. But you really couldn’t stand me, so … I gave up. Eventually.”
“I could stand you,” I said, like he was crazy. And then, wanting to emphasize but too flustered to do it properly, I said, “I could stand you very much.”
Duncan frowned.
“I didn’t hate you is what I’m saying.”
“Oh,” Duncan said. “That’s surprising. But you sure hate me now.”
I didn’t hate him now, but I wasn’t confessing to that. “You’re very different now,” I said.
Duncan laughed. “No shit.”
Then he leaned back against the headrest and watched the beach houses go by—all their pinks and aquas and yellows.
“Man, I had such a thing for you,” he said, thinking about it like we were reminiscing. “But of course,” he said, pointing at me, “I’ll never tell you that.”
“You’re telling me that right now.”
“Yeah, but you’ll forget it all by morning.”
“No, you’re the one who’ll forget it by morning.”
“Huh,” he said, frowning at that news. “I guess it’s the medicine talking.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “We should probably drop the subject.”
“Good idea,” Duncan agreed. “Because I do not want you to know how into you I am.”
“Good plan.”
A minute later, he started up again.
“It’s just hard to hold it in though, because when something like that happens to you—like when you just see someone and a part of your heart just clicks into place like a little puzzle piece you didn’t even know was missing—and you don’t even think it in words, but something in you just knows, like that’s my person, somehow. Or at least, that person could be my person. You know—if they liked the idea, too. If they looked at you and by some crazy miracle thought the same thing back.” He looked over. “Did you by any chance think the same thing back?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Good idea, good idea. Keep a poker face. Don’t tell me.”
He tried to check his phone again. Then he said, “Besides, I wouldn’t want you to go out with a guy like me.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t tell my sister,” he said. “But I’m pretty much ruined.”
* * *
The school had rented a waterfront beach cottage for Duncan in a fancy, West Beach neighborhood.
Not too shabby.
I paid the driver, opened Duncan’s door, unbuckled him, and put his right arm over my shoulder again, careful not to touch his left side, where they’d done the cryosurgery. He felt heavier this time, and even on that short walk from the car, he lost his balance more than once.
West Beach houses were all up on stilts, so we had a whole flight of stairs to climb. When we reached the base of them, Duncan stopped at the first one, head bent down as he stared at it, and pawed several times with his foot before he hit his target.
Needless to say, we took it slow.
Halfway up, he turned to me like he’d had a great idea and said, “Hey! I’ve got it! Let’s get married!”
“Brilliant,” I said. “I’m in.”
I’d forget everything by tomorrow, anyway.
Chuck Norris practically knocked us both over when I finally got the door open.
Then he ran in circles around the living room, engulfed in delight, for at least ten minutes before finally habituating to the idea that Duncan had come home.
“That dog is really happy to see you,” I said, as we made our way across the living room and Chuck Norris ran laps around us.
Duncan nodded. “Don’t tell him I said this,” he said, “but he’s a terrible security dog.”
“Agreed,” I said.
Inside, things were … ascetic. It was a furnished rental—simple wood floors, minimal furniture, nothing too wild or wacky. There was almost nothing personal about it. A