I didn’t know what to say. So I just nodded, and when Tisha came closer and wrapped her arms around me, I hugged her right back.

16

HIS HEAD BETWEEN ANOTHER WOMAN’S LEGS

ELI

Just as Eli had expected, he didn’t hear from sober Rue—not the following day, nor the following week. It was one thing to be drunk and horny, another to follow through in the harsh daylight. Rue clearly ran her life like a tight ship, and Eli couldn’t imagine there being room for him in it—not past the chemical help alcohol could provide.

By a stroke of luck, time didn’t allow him to be too mournful. One of Harkness’s agri-tech startups was in dire need of a sudden influx of cash, and someone was required on-site to figure out the best strategy. Hark was in California, so Eli volunteered, thinking that some distance from Austin would be ideal. Then a two-day trip to Iowa turned into five days of meetings and inspections, and on the return flight he fell stone-cold asleep in his seat, his head a jumbled exhaustion of aerial imaging, crop health, and asymmetrical lips. The amused look the flight attendant gave him told him he’d drooled all over himself.

Once he was back, Minami got sick, and Sul took time off to take care of her, which meant that most day-to-day shit fell to Eli and Hark, but he didn’t mind too much. Because Eli liked his job.

The realization had sunk into him not too long ago, a gradual acknowledgment more than a thundering moment of selfawareness. His conscientious choice of an expendable major aside, finance had never been part of his dreams. And yet, he was good at it. Nearly ten years ago they’d started Harkness with a singular, specific destination, but the journey had surprised him more than once, and he couldn’t help wondering what would happen once they reached their port of call. Whether they’d come far enough.

Had he come far enough?

A week after his trip, he stumbled home past midnight, exhausted by the back-to-back meetings, and found a note scribbled in Maya’s handwriting on the kitchen counter.

I know you’re busy making several shitloads of monies, but will Tiny and I ever see you again?

To the side there was a chicken potpie covered in cellophane wrap. He smiled, recalling the whys and the hows of his past choices.

Maybe it wasn’t far enough, but it was certainly far.

Minami and Sul returned to work looking rested and more joined at the hip than usual, so much so that Eli wondered if they’d faked being sick and gone on a sex cruise. There was a newlywed energy between them that was about three years late, and if Eli had picked up on it, it was being drilled into Hark’s skull with the force of a swarm of termites.

That night Hark said, “Need to blow off some steam,” and Eli drove them to the gym without any comments. But the racquetball court they’d reserved was already occupied by two women. “Fucking brilliant,” Hark muttered under his breath.

“Did you two book the room?” one asked.

Eli smiled. “No worries. We’ll ask for another.”

“There are none. Someone else was using the one we booked, so we came in here.”

Eli glanced at Hark, whose mood was rapidly deteriorating. “That’s fine. We’ll just wait till you’re done.”

“Or, want to join us for doubles?” the other player asked with a grin.

Eli looked at Hark again, who shrugged an indifferent why not. They split up one man and one woman per team, and if Eli thought that it was because he and Hark would otherwise have an advantage, that notion was instantly, humblingly dispelled.

“You two play a lot?” he asked his teammate half an hour later, during a much-needed water break. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe his sweat. It was already drenched.

“Almost every day when we were in college. Increasingly less so for the past five years,” she told him. “I’m Piper, by the way.”

“Eli.” He shook her hand. She was older than he’d originally thought, then. Tall, with long dark hair. Blue eyes. Beautiful, objectively so, but in a way that was completely different from Rue, who had the uncanny ability to soak up all the light in a room, like a prism that refused to spit out rainbows. Piper was bright and luminous and smiled a lot. Because she doesn’t despise you, a sardonic voice in his head suggested.

It was right.

They chatted for a while, and Eli thought that Piper was skirting the thin line between friendly and flirty, a familiar dance. He listened to her stories about being a pharmacist, wondering if he was interested. He should be. How refreshing, the idea of spending time with a beautiful, intelligent, funny woman who didn’t loathe the idea of being attracted to him.

It would be good for him—a hard reset. Rue had messed up his parameters, but someone else might bring him back to factory default. Someone with whom a simple conversation wouldn’t be a land mine. Someone who wouldn’t look at him like he’d turned into a balloon animal when he asked for a date, who saw him as more than a quick fuck. At the very least, racquetball was on the table.

Did Rue play any sports? Basketball or volleyball, maybe, given her height. She’d be good at it, he was sure. She seemed coordinated, and her body was strong. He’d felt the muscles tense under the pliant flesh of her thighs, and just that little moment had been more of a turn-on than some of the seriously dirty stuff he’d been up to in the past decade.

“You guys ready?” Hark asked from his side of the court, and Eli had his answer. He was not interested in Piper. Not if while she told him about her last Pacific Northwest road trip, all he could do was think wistfully about having his head between another woman’s legs.

“That was unexpected,” Hark told him in the parking lot after more racquetball, after Eli pleaded a previous commitment when invited out for dinner, after a shower spent contemplating the severe idiocy of being hung up on Rue Siebert.

“Yeah. Really good players.”

“I meant, the part where you debuted your monastic endeavors.”

“Just tired is all.” Historically, Eli had been the one who got around. Girlfriends, friends, people he barely knew. Dates, relationships, hookups. Hark . . . even before Minami, his sex life had been more circumspect. They hadn’t discussed it much after, because there was little to talk about.

“Right. Nothing to do with Dr. Rue Siebert, then?”

Sometimes Hark was insufferable. “Nothing at all,” Eli lied. “Did you like . . . ?”

“Emily.”

“Did you like Emily?”

“She’s pretty fantastic. Gave me her number,” Hark said quietly.

A beat. “Are you going to use it?”

He didn’t reply, but they both knew the answer.

The last transcript of a three-part witness deposition was dropped on Eli’s desk that Friday night. “In case you’re in search of some light bedtime reading,” Minami told him.

When he looked up, her smile was mischievous.

“Is it . . . ?”

She nodded. “The lawyers are still combing through it. They refuse to commit on whether the depo gives us reason enough to send a notice of default and acceleration, but they have no doubt that something weird is going on. At the very least, we’ll be able to go to court and ask for more discovery.”

“Thank fuck.”

“I know. Let’s get dinner. To celebrate,” Minami offered. “Just the two of us, no Sul or Hark. I’m tired of my stupid husband and your stupid husband getting in the way of our affair.”