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Muffy
Ty, darling, I’m afraid I have news that might break your heart. Last night, in a sunset ceremony, the yacht’s captain married Diesel and me. It was beautiful. He wept openly. I may or may not have told him I’m 47, but don’t worry, I have a plan. I’m going to see if I can convince him he’s got number dyslexia and that he mixed up the fact that I’m 74. The things we’ll do for love…
Donna
Muffy checked in to see if she broke your heart. Apparently she married a stripper? The good news is she feels so bad about upsetting you, she told the other buyer the team has been sold, so I guess congratulations are in order. You’re about to become the sole owner of the Dallas Destroyers. I hope it makes you happy.
“All right, Ty, what’s wrong?” Michael asks, pausing the show. “And don’t tell me it’s because you have another 843 emails to respond to by morning because you quite often have hundreds of emails and you’re never in this bad a mood.”
I’ve been home for two hours now, and even though I thought I was doing a pretty decent job of pretending I’m fine, I must be failing miserably. We’re sitting in the living room with Planet Earth on while I work. “I’m fine, Michael. I’m just busy.”
He raises one eyebrow at me and takes another cookie from the plate on the coffee table. “That’s not true. You’re grouchy and you’ve only eaten one cookie even though this is definitely a top-notch batch by Greta. Usually you’d have had four by now.”
“Four? No,” I say, shaking my head as I press send. “Three maybe, but never four.”
“Come on. What’s wrong? Is it because you didn’t sleep?”
I open an email from Anika, my new COO. “I actually slept like a log. Well, the last two nights, anyway.” The last two nights, tangled up with a very naked, completely comforting, absolutely lovely Gwen Fox.
“Really? That’s never happened before.”
“I know,” I tell him, keeping my eyes on my screen even though I’m not able to concentrate on a word of what’s in front of me.
“Was it a particularly comfortable bed or something?”
“No, the first night was in a tent on a beach next to the Amazon. No bed at all.”
“And the second?”
“Comfortable bed in a lodge in the rain forest.”
“So, was it the sounds of the rain forest that helped you sleep?”
My face warms up. “Um, no. I don’t think so. I’ve been to jungles before.”
“Interesting. We should try to figure out what was the difference so you’ll be able to do it again when you go on business trips,” Michael says. He takes a bite of cookie, then, after chewing and swallowing, he says, “Although, you’ve never come home this grumpy so maybe it’s better if you don’t sleep.”
I go back to reading Anika’s email, only to be interrupted again. “Did something bad happen out there?”
“No, nothing bad happened. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Michael tells me. “I can tell, and in case you forgot, I have autism, which makes it difficult for me to read body language and facial expressions. If I can tell, it’s got to be pretty bad.”
I chuckle a little, then shake my head and sit back against the couch. “All right, you got me. I’m a little upset. Well, confused, maybe. Remember that friend I told you about? Gwen?”
“Yes. She’s the one who told you about the Geminid meteor shower.”
“That’s right. Anyway, I spent a lot of time with her when I was there. A lot of time. And I really enjoyed it, but now that we’re home, we can’t … spend more time together anymore.”
“Do you mean intercourse, Ty?”
I sputter, then remember he’s thirty-four, not eight. “Yeah, well, that was part of it.”
“I see. So I was right when I guessed you wanted to date her.”
Nodding, I let out a sigh. “Yeah, you were right. But it’s not going to work out.”
“Why not?”
