Page 49 of Over & Out

I think we both know we’re not in the same place we were three weeks ago. But I can’t exactly explain what’s changed. As for Chris, I get the sense she still hates myguts, despite the way she’s shown up for me. But we haven’t talked about any of it. I still feel like shit for not immediately apologizing for what happened at the hotel. But I died a thousand deaths trying to figure out what the right thing to do about that was. I had no idea how to explain that I feel like I abandoned another woman for her—one I never officially met but managed to put in the hospital. Any way I put it, it sounded unhinged.

“Yeah. We’re peachy,” Chris says, summing it up. To me, she says, “Come on, I’ll help you bring in whatever else you got.”

Outside, the afternoon sun is hot, the air still. I say something about how I had to park two blocks away because of the other cars clustered around Tru and Kevin’s place. And touch on the shitty parking situation in general in this pretty little suburb of LA. Then quiet reigns once more.

“So I guess you were right,” I say, just to break the silence between us.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Chris asks.

I know she heard me.

I slant her a look. “I said you were right. She wanted a shower.”

“Of course she wanted a shower.”

“How did you know? She told Cindi no three times.”

“You just know. Some people truly don’t want one, and they’ll tell you. But Tru wanted one.”

I don’t pretend to understand that. “Well. Thank you for making it happen. It’s great.”

“You haven’t made it past the foyer yet.”

“I’m sure it’s great.”

Chris goes to roll her eyes, but we’ve arrived at my Land Rover.

Chris’s eyes go wide. “Hopper, what the hell?”

“What?”

It’s very clear what she’s staring at. She does a full circle around the vehicle, which is crammed so full it’s a road hazard. “You did this?”

“I do know how to buy shit.” When I open the back, a large bunch of colorful balloons tries to make a run for it.

“Shit!” I grab the ribbons with one hand, keeping them from making full liftoff, while catching a giant teddy bear with my foot.

Chis reaches for the bear. “Hopper.” She snuggles the teddy bear to her chest like a small child, and once again, I’m hit with that same weird gooiness in my chest I felt when seeing her with that baby.

“So you went shopping for all this? On your own?”

“It was mostly online.”

“And the wrapping?”

I grimace. “Yeah, I did it myself.” It didn’t feel right to have a service do that part when the only effort I made was clicking on a bunch of stuff and putting it on my Amex.

Chris pulls out a box. It’s half wrapped, the text clearly visible on the cardboard. Yet somehow there’s an abundance of paper on the opposite side. “Well. I guess it’s the thought that counts.”

“It got late,” I say defensively.

Her lips twist. “So you wrapped these in the dark.”

“Maybe.” I run a hand over my mustache and chin. “Fine, I also might have had a glass of scotch or two to get me through it. The liquor, not the eggs.”

Chris shoots me a look from under her brows, but I see the smile in her eyes. God, I’ve missed that smile. I want to mainline it into my veins.

She pulls out another present, this one a giant ball wrapped with two completely different paper patterns. It wouldn’t be terrible, except when she turns it around, there’s a sock taped to the side where the papers join.

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