Page 53 of Here We Go Again

Joe does a U-turn toward the exit. “Girls, we’re leaving!”

Even Odie doesn’t budge. Logan leans over the counter. “Out of curiosity, how much does the painting cost?” she asks in a low voice.

“We’re listing it at fifteen hundred.”

“That’s a little more than I usually want to spend on porn….” Logan winces and turns to Rosemary. “Wanna go halfsies?”

“It’s not porn! It’s art!” The gallerist clasps the painting to her chest. “It’s a poignant play on the male gaze and a deconstruction of hypermasculinity and machismo!”

“Logan Maletis!” Joe says in his Teacher Voice. “Rosemary Hale! We’re leaving! Now!”

Like scolded children, they promptly follow him out of the gallery, leaving behind the confused gallerist and the memento of a different Joe Delgado.

Chapter Sixteen

LOGAN

She can’t believe she just stared down the barrel of Joe Delgado’s giant dick and now he’s outrunning her in a wheelchair through the streets of Santa Fe.

“Joe, wait! Let’s talk about this!”

“There is no way we are ever talking about this.Ever!”

“But Joe!” Hale calls out. “This is clearly important!”

“It absolutely isnot,” he says gruffly. He’s out of breath from hauling his dying ass away from his naked ass. “I just want to go back to the hotel.”

“We just stumbled upon a naked painting of you from the eighties in New Mexico!” Logan huffs. “We should talk about it, Joe!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He reaches for his handkerchief again and frantically dabs his brow. Logan notices the letters stitched in purple thread for the first time. RSP.Remy St. Patin.

She looks at Hale, and it’s clear she’s made the connection too. “Is Remy St. Patin… someone from your past…? A boyfriend, or…?” Hale treads carefully over the words, but it’s not careful enough.

“I said I don’t want to talk about him!” Joe snaps. “Drop it! Please, girls.”

“Come on, Joe,” Logan coaxes, “we’re on this death trip together, and if you have some long-lost love—”

“Logan, for once in your life, consider someone else’s feelings and stop talking!”

Those cruel words decimate every ounce of feigned apathy Logan has, making her feel small and silly, the way her other teachers always had. The way her mom had, before she left. They all stand in awkward silence for a moment, sweating profusely on a Santa Fe sidewalk. “I know you have an incredible dick,” Logan says as flippantly as she can, “but that doesn’t mean you need tobea dick.”

“I don’t need help getting into bed tonight,” Joe snaps once they’ve checked into their hotel and arrived at their adjoining rooms.

Logan makes a show of checking the time on her phone. “First of all, it’s seven o’clock. And second, don’t be a stubborn asshole. Of course you need our help.”

“Not tonight,” Joe mutters as he wheels himself over the transition strip between the room with two queen beds and his king-bed suite. The wheels keep getting stuck, but he keeps turning them with his wrinkled hands, unable to get himself over the hump. “Tonight, I just need to be alone.”

“Fine.” Logan throws her duffel violently onto her bed. “Have fun changing your own diaper.”

Hale watches Joe struggle for another ten seconds before she loses her patience. She grabs the handles on his wheelchair and guides him into his room.

“I said I didn’t need help!”

Hale pulls away her hands like the chair burned her. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Will you please use the baby monitor tonight? Or keep your phone next to you so you can call if you need anything? And please don’t try to walk on your broken foot. If you have another fall—”

“Enough, Rosemary!” Joe won’t even look back at her. “Odie, come boy.”

Odie lowers his head and glances at Hale, like he’s asking her permission before he slinks into the king room with his angry owner.