Page 23 of Off the Trail

It’s Marika. “I wanted to check with you—I just saw Shawn Camden. He said you invited him over to watch a baseball game?”

I’m still distracted by Brooke, though she picks up her breakfast and keeps eating, which makes me feel marginally better.

“Yeah. That’s not a problem, is it?” The whole point of the retreat is getting a break from the world, and I usually embrace that. The invitation left my mouth without thinking—I was responding to my friend, Shawn, offering him what I would to any friend. I wasn’t thinking about him as a guest. The lines are getting blurry.

“It’s not a problem,” she says carefully. I can tell she’s debating how much to say. “Today’s your day off. But⁠—”

She stops, and I wonder if she can see through me, not unlike a mother would.

“But?”

“Nothing, I guess,” she says finally, as if she’s not even sure herself what the issue would be, but senses something going on that she can’t put her finger on. “It seems like whatever you two have been doing has been working for him.”

I could read into her word choice, but since there’s nothing inappropriate about the “whatever” we’ve been doing, I figure she doesn’t mean anything by it.

“Bass fishing and board games will put anyone in a better mood.”

“He definitely seemed psyched to be walking over to your place.”

“That’s good,” I say, and then her words sink in. “Wait. He’s walking here now?”

“I passed him on the road a few minutes ago.”

Shawn’s on his way here. It’s not a particularly long walk. I look around the dog-hair-coated living room, the cluttered kitchen table, the pancake mess all over the kitchen counter, and down at my flour-speckled pajama pants and sleep shirt.

“I better go,” I say.

“Blaze—”

I wait, but she says nothing. “Yeah?”

“Never mind.” She obviously has something she wants to say, but I don’t have the patience to draw it out of her. Instead, I say goodbye and hang up. She’s more like family than my boss, but it is my day off after all.

And Shawn Camden’s coming over.

“Who’s walking here now?” Brooke asks, pouring syrup on her second helping of pancakes. She seems over whatever was bothering her enough to stop eating earlier.

“One of the guests. He’s on his way here, so maybe we should get dressed. Sorry for the short notice.”

Her forehead ripples like a stone tossed into the lake. “A guest? What for?”

I rack my brain and try to think of any other retreat guest I’ve had over to the house and come up empty.

“Um. Well, it’s Shawn Camden.”

“The baseball player? Didn’t you guys go hiking a few nights ago?”

“Last week, yeah. His old team’s playing today. I told him he could watch the game here.”

“So this is a work thing?” she asks suspiciously. “I thought you had today off.”

“Not exactly. We’re friendly, I guess you could say. It’s not a big deal.” I start to clear away the breakfast mess as swiftly as I can without making it seem like I’m panic cleaning before a guy comes over.

She narrows her eyes. If Marika has a sixth sense something is up, Brooke’s antennae are twitching out of control.

“I thought we were going to see the construction site,” she says, helping me with the dishes.

I glance at the clock above the sink. “Well, the game’s not for a couple of hours. We can go beforehand.”