Page 7

Andrew

We stopped for a quick lunch at a burrito cart, then went back to Katy’s house so she could pack for our trip to Lawson. While I was waiting, I messaged our family chat to let everyone know what was going on.

My mother was predictably thrilled. She’d tried hard to fix me up with Katy when she was in Lawson eighteen months ago and while I never let on that her plan to make me fall for her had worked, both of my brothers had figured it out pretty quickly. They stayed neutral on the family chat, but I knew I’d get the third degree from Patrick as soon as we were alone in Lawson. Christopher and Steph were about to board a plane for a two week vacation, so at least I’d have a reprieve on that side. Ever since that grumpy asshole fell in love he’d been determined to help me and Patrick get paired up too.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Normally I was a guy who had a plan, but I had no plan here. I was operating on the fly. Forcing Katy to spend time with me was either going to be an act of strategic brilliance, or the whole thing was going to blow up in my face, leaving me with a broken heart.

I knew Katy didn’t want a serious relationship. Or any relationship. Ever. She’d been crystal clear about that. But she’d called me from jail, not anyone else, and that had to mean something right? When I saw her at the detention center, looking so forlorn, I couldn’t just bail her out and leave her. The boxer’s fracture gave me an excuse to take care of her, and I damn well was going to take it.

We’d have three weeks together in Lawson. That meant I had three weeks to convince her to take a chance on us. Three weeks to show her that us being together would add to her life, not detract from it. Three weeks to figure out how we would make this work with us living an hour away from each other.

I didn’t have all the answers, but I knew an opening when I saw one. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity go to waste.

“I’m ready.”

Katy’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. She’d changed into jeans and an open flannel shirt with another shirt underneath, trading her runners for snow boots. The weather was colder up in Lawson, and we got a lot more snow than they did down here in the city, so I was glad she’d come prepared. Ignoring her objections, I grabbed her tote bag and suitcase and took it to my car, leaving her to lock up the house and follow me.

“I appreciate you offering me a place to stay,” she said as I pulled out of the driveway.

Her voice was stilted, her need to be polite warring with her annoyance that I’d manipulated her into accepting.

Sorry, not sorry, I thought.

I put on a soft rock playlist from Spotify and headed out of town. As we drove, I could see Katy starting to relax. The poor thing was always on alert. Maybe it was because she had a career preparing for and responding to disasters, but I had a feeling that it was more than that. Christopher told me once that Katy and Steph were such good friends partly because they had similar childhoods and understood each other so well.

I didn’t know all the details, but I’d heard from my mother that Steph’s father was in prison for killing their mother. It didn’t take much to connect the dots there. It went a long way towards explaining how resistant Steph was to being with my brother in the beginning, despite the fact that she was so obviously in love with him.

Hopefully someday Katy would trust me enough to confide in me about her own history. I knew I was privileged. I’d had a great childhood here in Lawson with two parents who wanted us and loved us.

“So what do you do for fun?” I asked as we hit the freeway and drove out of the city.

“Fun?” she asked, like the word was foreign to her.

“When you’re not working,” I clarified.

“Well, I work a lot, but when I’m not I like to run, do pilates, and hang out with Steph and Carmen, although they’re not as available as they used to be.”

I knew why Steph had competition for her time, and its name was Christopher.

“What’s Carman’s story?” I asked.

“She owns a restaurant so that keeps her really busy,” Katy said. “And last summer she got back together with her ex-husband so she needs to spend some of her time with him, of course.”

“How did they get back together?” I asked.

I didn’t really care, but I wanted to keep her talking. Every story she told me had the potential to give me a clue how to win Katy over.

“Serendipity really. He happened to come into her restaurant one day,” she said. “He’d just moved to Denver, but he had no idea she was living here too. They started talking, and it turned out there was a huge mistake that led to their breaking up.”

“A mistake?”

“She thought he’d cheated on her, but he’d been set up by somebody who was angry with him,” she explained.

“Seems like they could have cleared that up with a conversation back when it happened,” I observed.

Katy chuckled.

“Yeah, but you know how it is with break-ups, sometimes you’re so up in your feelings that you’re not thinking clearly.”