Page 7 of Stuck

I want to apologize for way back when, and convince her I’m worth knowing now, although I blew our game, so maybe I’m not.

That’s as good a place as any to start. “You win,” I say plainly. “I couldn’t keep up. I forgot, for a second, that I’d made you that promise. But I’d remembered before that. I remembered when you sat down, and that was hard, because the second I realized it was you, after all these years, I wanted to say so much. I wanted to jump up and spill my guts out to you.” I hold my arms wide. “And frankly, that is not something I’m entirely comfortable with. Even now.What the fuck, Sam. She doesn’t need to hear your story.That’s what I told myself. So I kept my mouth shut, and if we hadn’t stopped, I’d have kept it shut. I remembered my promise, if that’s worth anything.”

Her eyes flit back and forth, assessing me. Then she shrugs. “It’s a weird night.”

That’s it.

I dump all that on her, verbal spillage of the worst sort, and she just shrugs and says it’s a weird night. “You’ve changed.” I say it with all the honest admiration I can muster. I like her. I like her bite, her snap, her strength.

She nods. “It’s been a long time.” Another short, spare statement. “Have you changed?”

I exhale roughly. There it is. My opening. “Yeah. A fair bit. I realized I’m an addict.”

She looks immediately to the drinks between us.

I’m used to that. I don’t shirk away from the unspoken question. “Not booze, although I don’t drink a lot. I don’t need another addiction in my life. But I don’t like the stuff enough to use it in that way. No, I’m a gambler. I’ve been in recovery for years.”

Her eyes go wide. “Cards?”

And how. At university, my poker games were legendary. And they came first, before Regan, before sports, before anything I should have valued. “Cards, horses, money. I…” I gesture to my suit. “I don’t actually do any of the investing part of being an investment banker anymore. Crashed and burned hard a couple of years ago. Got my brother in a shitload of trouble. We came out the other side of that bruised but better. Now he manages the investment side of things, and I make house calls on our more eccentric clients who like that I’m a wild boy.”

She laughs gently. “That makes you sound like a gigolo.”

“Not far off,” I say gruffly.

“Is that why you’re going to Ottawa tonight?”

He nods. “We have a client there. I’ll come home tomorrow morning.”

“You’re going up for one night?” Her eyes sparkle. “Are you literally a gigolo? No judgement.”

I smile. “No, but I was going to spend the night with her.” The look on Hazel’s face is incredible. A little twist of jealousy, which I enjoy, but it’s almost all curiosity. “Because she’s a night owl. We usually have a late dinner, and then spend the night pouring over her accounts before having breakfast together. Sometimes we finish late in the night and I grab some sleep, other times it’s an all-nighter until I head back to the train.”

“Long round trip. Why don’t you fly?”

I grimace. “I, uh, can’t.”

Her eyes go wide and her voice softens. “Phobia?”

“Insider trading.”

Her mouth falls open and a small squeak comes out. “Huh.”

“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “It’s not universal. I can get on planes. Just not the ones operated by the two companies I put in financial peril. In hindsight, it was dumb to piss off both domestic airlines like that.” Then I grin, because I know it could be way worse. It had been, for a couple of years. It had been brutal, and a mess entirely of my own making. Now, my life was back on track. “It’s an inconvenience, but I’m in no place to complain. I could be in jail and I’m not.”

“That sounds like quite the story,” she says, her eyes still wide. “I don’t want to pry, though.”

“Pry away. Part of the twelve steps is taking responsibility and coming to terms with what I did.”

“So I’ve heard, but I’ve never seen it represented quite that honestly before.” She pauses as the food cart rattles towards us.

“Festive turkey, salmon, or lasagna, miss?”

“Lasagna for me, please.”

I take the same.

She looks at me curiously as we dig into our food.

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