Page 44 of Time After Time

“Well, that was Freja’s analysis…and Jonathan’s, that she must be good in bed, but because, between you and me, Ransom, she’s….” He trails off.

“She’s what?”

“She’s like someone who’s still in her teenage years. She’s spoiled. She’s disrespectful. She can’t fucking read the room.”

I want to defend Calypso, but I agree with Aksel, and we’re honest with each other, no bullshit, so I don’t. “I’ve never seen her this way.”

“Are you guys serious about each other?”

I shake my head. “We’re friends who fuck. She’s decent company. She doesn’t have close family, and I thought she’d fit in, have a good time. But she’s…I don’t know…moody. Margot seems to like her.”

Aksel chuckles. “Mama talks to warlords to create safe passages for refugees. She can talk to anyone. I don’t know if she likes her, but you’ll never know if she doesn’t.”

“Today, Calypso said that I don’t let her be herself.”

The accusation still stings. Olivia had said something similar.

Did I do that to Ember as well?

Aksel sets his empty glass down, and I place mine on the bench in front of us. He pours us another round.

We both grimace before downing it like a shot.

“You know, it doesn’t taste too bad now,” Aksel admits.

“I think it’s because we’ve lost all feeling in our tongues.”

“True.” Aksel leans back and exhales slowly, his breath curling into pale rings in the cold air. “You’re steady.Always. I remember how Freja would get flustered, and she’d be yelling at you. You’d be calm as a lake. That’s your charm. The steady, solid man. It’s also your flaw.”

I furrow my brows, trying to read between the lines. “Thanks…I think?”

Aksel glances at me, the corners of his mouth tugging up in pure amusement. “I can lose my temper and get into a screaming match, you know that. You don’t blow in the wind like some of us. Women likethat at first. Then they wonder why you’re not flinging yourself into rivers for them.”

I swirl what’s left of the liquor in my glass, watching the firelight catch in my drink. “You’re saying they think I’m cold.”

“Not cold, Ransom, but those who know you can see who you let in and who you don’t. If Calypso is throwing tantrums, it’s because right now, she sees that you’ve not let her in. Back home, she didn’t see you with family, didn’t see you with people in your inner circle. She knows she’s not.”

Fuck, but he makes sense, for a geeky banker.

“Olivia said that’s why she had an affair, because I was closed off.”

“Olivia was…is a bitch. I ran into her in Paris a while ago, at some U.S. Embassy thing.” Aksel tops off his glass. “She’s on her third engagement, working toward her third divorce.”

“So, you’re saying she was to blame for the debacle that was our marriage?”

Aksel laughs. “No, you were definitely equally to blame. Relationships take two people. In any case, you both were so fucking unsuited.”

I tilt my head back and let the cold air slap my cheeks. “And Calypso and I are also unsuited.”

“Is that a question?”

“No.”

I take a breath.

“You know, Olivia told me that living with me was like living in a beautiful house with no doors.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”