Page 15 of The Pretender

“But I have to swallow my pride.”

“I obviously don’t know the history, but why do you have to have such a defeatist attitude about it? Why can’t this be an exciting next phase of your career?”

“What do you mean?”

“Deo.” I take his hand in mine. “Life is full of detours and paths we never expected to take, but that’s the joy of it. You never know where it will lead. Fancy drink, remember?”

A slight smile tugs at his lips as he nods. “You’re right. I’m focusing on the lemons. I don’t have to tell my family everything bad that happened. I can tell them I’ve decided I want to be close to home and I want to use my experience to help. That’s not a lie.”

“There you go. You’ve got this.”

“Thanks for the reminder. I needed it.”

“You bet.”

The Madison airport is blissfully small and uncrowded. It’s an easy walk from our gate to the baggage claim, and while Deo runs off to the restroom, I find the corral with our flight number.After all the flight drama last night, I’ll be truly impressed if our bags made it too.

Deo appears next to me, bumping his arm against mine. “It’s nice out. No snow at all.”

“Lucky.”

A few minutes later, the sign dings and bags begin dropping. I keep an eye out for my black bag in a sea of black bags, but I have a gold luggage tag on mine that stands out.

“What’s your bag look like?” I ask.

“It’s pink.” He grins up at me. “Told you.”

“Whatever makes you happy.”

He chuckles, holding his coat close to him. “It makes me happy. Oh. There it is.”

I look ahead to see a soft pink suitcase with darker pink flowers all over it coming towards us. I step forward to grab it, surprised by the weight of it.

“Thanks,” Deo says, taking it from me. “There’s another one too.”

“Everything you own is in two suitcases?”

He shakes his head. “Oh no. I have a bunch of boxes on the way too. I shipped them.”

“I see.”

“But the furniture I had came with the apartment I was renting.”

“I had a similar setup. I only brought a few weeks of clothes with me, assuming I would find access to laundry services.”

“We have it. The estate is pretty self-sustaining. We have a huge family garden and lots of amenities.”

“Sounds very nice.”

“I think it’s a good place to hide out from the real world for a while.”

“Perfect.”

My bag shows up a few minutes later, followed by a much larger suitcase belonging to Deo. I grab it too, slightly worried about throwing my back out.

“Got a body in here?”

Deo laughs. “It would probably be lighter if I did.”