Page 22

LEXI

I had allowed the afternoon to slip away. I checked my watch. I needed to get the meatballs finished so that when Cooper got in we could open some champagne, have a glass, and hear his stories without having to work so hard.

I rolled meatballs with the new meat and chopped the tomato, glancing through the window at the lawn, watching the back-shack, wondering if Torin was figuring everything out. It was impossible to tell because the house remained dark as the shadows of the woods around my yard grew long.

The door was open though, he was in there. He hadn’t tried to leave again.

I chopped the tomatoes and started the sauce in a large skillet, then I slid the meatballs into the oven. It wasn’t time to put the water on to boil, I was just getting this step started.

But then I heard the sound of a truck pulling into the driveway. I checked the clock — Cooper!

I rushed out to the porch.

“Cooper! You’re home!”

He was sitting in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, the truck turned off.

“Cooper, you okay?”

He opened the door and slowly climbed out. His face was drawn down. He exhaled and said, “No, I’m not.”

“Oh, oh no!” I threw my arms around his neck. He dropped his head to my shoulder and breathed against my neck. He seemed so sad, accentuated by the fact that his hands remained down by his side. “Oh, I am so sorry, Cooper. This is… did you not get it?”

He shook his head, just a shift against my shoulder.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just held on.

And we stood quietly, until finally his arms went around my back, seeking comfort from the despair.

I said, “I don’t know what happened, can you talk about it?”

A long silence was followed by, “There’s nothing to say, they told me this morning that they decided to pass. John, my ‘handler’, told me that it wasn’t my…” He exhaled. “Can we go inside?”

I nodded and pulled from his embrace.

He went around the truck to get his suitcase from the back and trudged behind me up the steps to the house.

We went to the kitchen table, the best place to talk. He had left the wheeled suitcase in the hall and now slumped down in a chair.

I sat down across from him. “What did he say?”

“Who?” He ran a hand through his hair despondently.

“Your handler, John? You didn’t finish your thought.”

“He told me it wasn’t my fault. He said they liked my project, they just don’t think the market is right for it, not right now.

They think there’s a bubble in the real estate market and that it’s not a good time for eco-tourism.

‘Too risky,’ they said. But to me they just said, ‘thank you for coming to speak to us, we’ve decided we’re going to pass.

’ It was… the most demoralizing thing I ever heard. ”

“Damn it, that really sucks.”

He nodded.

I said, “It’s hard to come up with the right words for how bad that sucks.”

He nodded again.

“So maybe we begin talking again about how I can give you the money to start it.”

He shook his head. “No, I said it before, Lexi, no, that’s your money. You know it wouldn’t be good to have you be the money person in my?—”

“I know no such thing. I know I love you and I’m happy to go into business with you.”

“I don’t think relationships usually outlast business contracts.” He cut his eyes.

I frowned. “That’s cold. Ours could. We love each other. I mean, I know we’ve been having some troubles, but we’re working on it. We’re going to…” My voice trailed off, then I finished, “…be good.”

He sighed. “I know, yeah, we’re good. I’m just disappointed, brutally disappointed.”

“If it’s not a contract, if we don’t go into business together, I could loan you the money?—”

“You want me to not only take on the risk of building a business, but to do it with a loan on your money? I don’t think so, Lexi, it’s not the way it should go.

You want me to be indebted to you? It would cause more stress on us, change our relationship.

I already live here, in your house, I just… no.”

“I just want to help — your idea is really good, I believe in it, I believe in you, and there’s this account with money in it, it’s just a smart investment…”

He was frowning.

My words trailed off.

“I don’t really want to discuss what my next step is.” He shook his head. “It’s nice that you believe in me, because I don’t think I can keep going. This dream feels pretty dead right now, I kind of want to quit.”

I blinked. “You would give up your dream?”

“For over a year I’ve been in meetings, going to banks, designing brochures, coming up with marketing strategies — you know, I’ve got the plan forward and backwards.

I have the property, I bought the building plans for the cabins, I know the contractor to build them.

I’m just tired of not being able to convince anyone else of the merits of the idea. ”

I frowned. “You convinced me.”

He squeezed my hand on the table. “Yeah, but really, Lexi, think about it. I have a grand idea and the only person I can convince to invest in it is my girlfriend. ”

“Your ‘girlfriend’.” It sounded so unimportant to call me that in this moment.

That had been our problem, he was still ‘dating’. His focus was entirely on his business. Always. “I think I’m more than your ‘girlfriend’.”

He sighed. “I mean that you might be too easily swayed.”

“You’re suggesting I’m swayed by your hot body?”

“Heck yeah, and my hot moves in the bedroom.” He half smiled. “I don’t want to be a kept man.”

“Fine, I guess I understand. I get you, but I don’t like the idea of you quitting. So I’m going to tell you to hush up about that. This is just a bump in the road. Your path to success is still in front of you.”

He huffed, his eyes traveling to the kitchen counter. “You got the champagne out?”

“Yeah, I guess you don’t feel much like celebrating.”

“Kinda feel like day drinking, though. Five o’clock somewhere.”

“It’s actually past five o’clock here. You’ve got a little jet lag.

” I stood and went to the champagne bottle.

“But… I’m not opening this, this is for when we are celebrating your business.

It will happen, Coop, I’m sure of it. You can’t have been working on this for so long without it coming true?—”

“Lexi, the world of business is full of failed dreams.”

I put the champagne back in the fridge and asked, “Want a beer or a glass of wine?”

“Beer, when does Jen get here?”

“Soon.” I chewed my lip trying to decide when to tell him about the stranger in the back-shack. The conversation had just gotten a lot more complicated.

I popped the lid off a beer and passed it to him.

I turned on the flame under the pasta pot, took the aluminum foil off the sauce, combined sauce with the meatballs, and slid the whole dish into the oven.

I was feeling kind of proud of myself for having done so much prep-work that I could sit down and have a beer with Cooper.

I had thought we would be celebrating, but instead I was even more necessary for consoling him.

I got a beer for myself when the screen door opened. Jen called, “It’s me!”

He said, “Dammit, now I gotta discuss all this again.”

She bustled in, dancing, with her phone playing music, singing, “Celebrate, good times… come on!”

Then she stopped.

“What…? What, no ‘celebrate good times’? What happened?”

Cooper said, “I didn’t land the investors.”

Her face fell. “Ah shit. That sucks.” She slumped into a chair and snapped her fingers at me. “Beer, please.”

I laughed and got her a beer. “Bossy, do I look like your bartender?”

“Well, you already heard the story, it’s my turn.” She focused on Cooper, “They didn’t like your plan? You can talk them into it, right?”

“They liked it, they just don’t think it’s the ‘right time’.”

“Ugh, that’s even worse.”

“Yeah. There’s no talking an investor out of an opinion on right and wrong time, it’s too ephemeral.

‘Nah man, it’s the right time.’ He says, ‘No, it’s not,’ and what have I got?

Just back and forth. I was thinking about it on the plane.

What if I convinced him that it was the ‘right time’ after concerted arguing?

You know what would happen — it would be provisional, right?

If the investor believes it’s not the ‘right time’ and I convinced him to invest anyway, it would probably be half the money.

Possibly there would be even more strings attached.

Or a higher interest rate, or… I mean, I don’t know what he would want, but my margins are slim enough.

I have no room to negotiate. I need all the money I asked for. ”

He spun his beer bottle while he spoke, then drank. “It’s a moot point anyway, the investors didn’t want to talk about it. No discussion.”

Jen said, “Damn, that sucks.”

“I guess this is a sign.”

Jen frowned. “This is not a sign, Coop, this is just a momentary setback.”

I said, “That’s what I was saying... see Coop, we agree.”

He said, after draining his beer, “So where’s Dude? He hasn’t greeted me yet.”

I said, “Oh, he’s probably just… somewhere, um…”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is Dude okay?”

“Yeah, he’s just, um… he’s probably down at the back-shack with…” I gulped. “Look, I have to tell you something, but it was going to be funny and an easy conversation when you had good news, remember that, now that you have terrible news, it’s not really that great?—”

His brow went up. “Someone’s visiting? Your uncle? You know I like him. That’s not an issue.”

“Not my uncle, remember that guy who crashed here on the lawn the other night?”

His eyes went wide. “What have you done, Lexi?”

“Well, the short story is that he was in the hospital and he didn’t have anywhere to go. So he’s staying in the back-shack and the rest is a long story, for a different time.”

“Lexi, is there a homeless guy living in your backyard? While I was out of town?” He turned to Jen. “Have you been a part of this epically dumb decision making?”

Jen put her hands up. “No, I mean yes, I am... and I know I’m supposed to be the sensible one, but honestly, Cooper, I met him at the hospital and talked to him here last night when he had to stay.

He seems really nice. This is not as crazy as it sounds, though I am kinda surprised he’s still here. This is not epically dumb.”

“See?” I turned to Cooper. “She agrees. I know it seems crazy, and it wasn’t every night, but he honestly doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” I took a sip of my beer. “Besides I had your gun, I was safe.”

His eyes got even wider. “My gun? ”

“Yeah, I was armed when I talked to him.”

“Holy shit, Lexi, that’s so irresponsible! What if you had gotten shot or worse, shot someone?”

“But I didn’t— and how is that worse?”

“Because of the trouble it causes! What you know about that guy is literally zero, and you’re waving my gun around?”

I bit my lips. “I think you’re kind of missing the point, the point was that you having a gun here kept me safe. I took care of myself, and made a decision that helped someone who desperately needed it.”

“He’s homeless, you found him in your yard…” He ran his hands up and down on his face, “Do you know anything about this guy?”

I glanced at Jen.

She said, “We know tons about him!”

“Like what?”

“Like... he’s from Scotland!” Then she pulled her phone from her pocket.

“But also, I hate it when people I love argue, can I help in some other way?” She looked at me.

“You invited Andrew and the boys, right? How about I text them and tell them the big celebration is not happening, we’ll do it later. ”

Cooper said, “That would be good, this has already been a lot.”

She started texting.

He said to me, “Well, out with it, what do you know about him?”

“Lots, um... Scotland, as Jen said, but the rest is not going to be easy to explain.”

Cooper shook his head. “Lexi, do you understand how absurd this sounds? This is the last thing I wanted to think about today, a homeless guy living here, while I’m just trying to unwind after a real shit few days.”

I patted the back of his hand. “I get you, I really do, I wish this hadn’t turned out this way, and I don’t know how to explain it but… he’s a time traveler.”

“Um… say what…?”

He looked at Jen, she shrugged, continuing to text.

He looked at me, then huffed. “I need to go take my stuff upstairs, I need to cool off, I need to take a break.”

He slid his chair from the table and stalked out of the room, grabbed his suitcase, and clomped up the stairs.

“Whoa Nelly,” I said to Jen, “that was not good, not at all good.”

She watched the door. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Coop so upset.” Her phone beeped.

She read her texts. “Everyone has been called off. Andrew says you owe him a meal.”

“Tell him next weekend, definitely.”

I watched her text, then stood and lifted the lid on the pasta pot, almost boiling. “I just don’t even know how to explain this. I get that this sounds so irresponsible and now I have to explain how time travel is real?—”

“This is going to require some epic explaining skills.”

I opened the oven and checked the sauce, it was sizzling hot. “Exactly! I don’t have those skills. So what I’m thinking is, you’re his friend too, maybe you could do it.”

“You want me to explain time travel and take some of the heat?”

I got out the parmesan and began shredding it. “Yes, please, because I cannot figure out how to do it. Also, put the wine bottles out on the counter. Some glasses.”

She put the bottles out and lined glasses beside it so it looked like a bar.