Page 72 of The Fundamentals

“He loves you, too!” I shot back. “He stole for you and got fired over it.”

“I don’t care about him,” she answered. “I don’t care about anyone. I don’t want to listen to you complain anymore, either, so go. Just go!”

I did.

Chapter 13

“Usually I dress as a Woodsmen player,” Bowie said. “It just seems natural for me.”

“Halloween is a time to wear something unnatural,” I told him. “Your costume should be something scary. People would get very scared of you, if they didn’t know you.”

“I’m frightening,” he agreed.

“No, I said they would only be scared if they didn’t know you. Everyone who does thinks that you’re…”

“If you mention the words ‘teddy’ or ‘bear,’ we’re going to have a problem.”

“A softie,” I finished, and left the other two words unsaid. “You really are.”

“I’m mean as a snake. Which I know, because I used to wrangle them. Did I tell you about when I had to crawl under a porch and there was a nest—”

“No, you hadn’t told me that story before and I don’t want you to tell me now, either.” I paused. “How did you fit under a porch, though?”

We were relaxing after dinner and he was trying to distract me, which was thoughtful like he always was. I was letting him think that the distraction was working because I wanted him to believe that I wasn’t upset or worried. In fact, I was both of those things. Since I’d talked to Aubin about her problems, I’d been extremely concerned about her, even though I was also furious and hurt. I was also worried because in a brief text (the only one he’d sent in response to my many questions), my dad had mentioned selling our cottage, and then he’d have no place to go home to when he broke up with the woman that my sister had told me about. On top of all that, I was even more worried because Valerie, Ward’s mom, had managed to get ahold of my dad to pass along a message to me. In a truly miraculous fashion, he had done it—after dropping the bomb that he was selling our home, he had let me know that Ward’s mom wanted to meet up. Then he had gone back to ignoring me.

I hadn’t told Bowie about that last part, though, because I knew his opinion would be that I shouldn’t talk to her, shouldn’t go anywhere near her. He was probably right about that, and I started to imagine some very bad scenarios, one where Ward had a knife and one where he was chasing me with a rope.

“That security guy is still following me, right?”

I realized that I’d interrupted his story about the snake nest, which he was sharing in detail.

“Yeah, he’s there,” Bowie said. “Are you worried about something?”

“No. Well, I still worry a little about Ward,” I admitted. It was more than a little. “I think I see him.”

He jerked up off the couch. “Where? Where have you seen him?”

“No, I onlythinkthat I see him,” I said, reaching out my hand. “I might catch a movement from the corner of my eye and I’m sure it’s him, but when I turn, it’s only the shadow of a tree in the wind, or a leaf floating by. There’s a guard at the stadium who’s his height and when I see him from the back, I’m sure that Ward has snuck in, wearing a uniform so no one will notice.”

“They already know to look for him at the stadium.” He took my hand and sat back down, and then he sighed. “I thought that getting married would be the answer. I thought you’d feel safer.”

“I do feel safer. I knew that you thought the problem would be solved and I hate telling you this.” I hated that he’d married me to save me and here I was admitting that it might have been a futile gesture. But in the short time we’d been together, I’d been working my butt off to be the best wife possible to him, doing everything I could to make his days happier and easier, to help him feel rested and fed, to show him that I was proud of him and also head over heels…no, I hoped he hadn’t been able to see that.

“You don’t need to worry about how I feel,” he told me.

“Of course, I do! I worry about you most of all. I worry that you don’t drink enough water. I worry about the game this weekend because I really don’t like the look of the West Virginia offensive line.”

“I can take them.” He looked at me. “Are you still thinking that Ward is going to try to hurt me?”

“You, or my dad, or Aubin,” I said, the words tumbling out. “Someone is watching and protecting me, but not you guys.”

“We also have people looking for him. Eventually, he’ll surface and once we know where he is, we can track him. We’ll know where he is at all times.”

“You’ll pay someone to follow him for the rest of his life?”

“If that’s what it takes, yes. Yes, because I’ll do anything for you, Lissa. I’ll do anything.”

It was so quiet in the apartment. My hand was on his cheek, but I wasn’t sure which one of us had put it there. I stroked my fingers across his skin, feeling the warmth of it and the slight tickle of a blonde beard that had started to come in since this morning.