Page 19 of Let It Breathe
“I’m fine, really,” Clay insisted. “Just let me help with the dishes?—”
“Sit!” she commanded.
Clay sat. “Thank you for dinner, Sheila. It was delicious.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How’s work going?” He wanted so badly to be the perfect house guest.
“All right.” She picked up her glass and sipped the last of her ice water. “Belmont keeps cutting back hours for forensic nursing, but the workload’s intense, since there are only a handful of us in the state?—”
“It sucks.” Eric grunted. “But at least we get to see more of each other, with her not driving back and forth to Portland so much.”
“That’s true.” Sheila smiled and Clay felt his shoulders relax. “Anything that lets us spend time together is a blessing.”
Clay tried to think of what else to chat about. “Dinner sure was great.” Did he already say that? “I should get out of your hair so you guys can spend some of that quality time together.”
“Actually, it’s girls’ night.” Sheila stood up as Clay started stacking plates. “I’m heading out to watch The Bachelor with Reese and Larissa, but you boys stay here and get comfortable.”
Eric gathered their empty glasses as Sheila maneuvered around the table and headed for the kitchen. Clay glanced at Eric, noticing the way his friend watched his wife with undisguised fondness. He tried to remember if Eric had ever looked at Reese that way.
Stop thinking about Reese, he commanded himself. He grabbed another cookie and took a bite.
Eric dropped his chair back to all four legs with a thud. “I think we’re grounded.”
“Huh?”
“The cookies, the fake beer—my lovely wife is terrified we’re going to sneak out for a wild night on the town.”
“Ah, I see—she’s afraid I’ll be a bad influence?”
“Something like that.”
Clay wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he took another bite of cookie and chewed hard. It wasn’t the first time someone from his past seemed skeptical about his sobriety, but this time stung a little more for some reason. He sipped his water—recently topped off by Sheila—and ignored the frosty microbrew in the glass beside his friend’s plate.
“So things went okay at the vineyard today?” Eric asked.
“Not bad,” Clay said, picking at the corner of his cookie. “Reese was pretty upset about some changes in the material costs, but hopefully we’ll get it ironed out.”
“She seem worried about you being out there with your history and everything?”
“A little,” Clay admitted.
“She’ll get over it.”
“Hope so. We’ll be spending a lot of time together.”
“Yeah?”
Clay shrugged. “This LEED-certified building process is pretty intense. I’ll practically be living out there for some phases of construction. And since Reese does live there, I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
“So you’ve swapped out alcoholism for workaholism now?”
“Is that even a word?”
“Sure it is,” Eric said. “So is douchebag, which is what I’m going to call you if you eat that last cookie.”
Clay broke the cookie in two and handed half to Eric. When they both sat munching in silence, Clay spoke again. “So is she seeing anyone?”
