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“He asked me about my job and my family. Then he asked me about my intentions with you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing. What did you say?”
“I said I’m a welder?—”
“No. What did you say your intentions were with me?”
“I said my intentions were none of his fucking business.”
I start to speak, but I don’t have a follow-up to that. “Um …” I clear my throat. “And what did he say?”
“Nothing.”
I nod to myself several times.
“Until we got to his house. Then he said he’d end me if I hurt you. And in the next breath, he asked me if I belonged to a gym because he needed a workout partner. So now we’re BFFs, and when I get back in town, we’re working out together three nights a week.”
I chuckle. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
“I’m not joking.”
“What?” I hold my phone out and stare at it, but I’m unsure why.
“I don’t belong to a gym, so he’s paying for my membership. I have weights in my garage, but I felt sorry for him, so I agreed to be his gym partner.”
This isn’t happening. It’s a joke. Right?
“Why did you feel sorry for him?”
“Because he let you go.”
Did he?
“Koen?”
“Yeah?”
“Hurry up and come back home.”
“That’s the plan.”
I feel sorry for Price,too, but for different reasons. Every time I start to ask him what I need to ask him, everything in my chest constricts clear up to my throat, and I suffocate.
He didn’t tell me about his new gym partner, so I don’t mention it when he comes into work the next day or when we go to the salt room, where I discover he’s bought us memberships.
Over the next two weeks, I spend many evenings with Price, sitting in the salt room, grabbing a healthy dinner, harvesting his sprouts, and listening to his growing collection of vinyl records while watching him work on his Lego projects.
It’s incredibly soothing.
One man loves puzzles, the other loves Legos.
As soon as I’m not with Price, I call Koen, and we spend over an hour on the phone.
“What’s a salt room?” he asks.
