“How about you refill the salsa bowl?”
“You drive a hard bargain, McAvoy,” I say with a grin. “But you’ve got yourself a deal.”
I’m spooning salsa into the bowl when there’s a knock at the door. Teddy and I exchange a questioning look. It takes a minute for the answer to register across his face, and when it does he scrapes his chair back so hard it nearly topples over.
I watch him rush over to look through the peephole, then he pulls open the door. “Hey, Dad,” he says as Charlie appears, still wearing his suit, which is significantly more rumpled now. “Where have you been? I texted you after the race—”
“My phone was off,” his dad says. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, his eyes darting around the apartment. “Is your mom here?”
Teddy shakes his head. “No. What happened before?”
“It was nothing,” he says, then his eyes land on me. “Hey, Alice. Heard about your boat.” He says this in a tone so grave you’d think we lost theTitanic.“Bad luck.”
“It happens,” I say with a shrug.
He pats at his suit pocket, then reaches in and pulls out a bag of Skittles, which he tosses to Teddy, whose face lightsup.
“No way,” he says, looking down at the package in his hand as if it was filled with precious stones rather than candy. He turns to where I’m still standing in the kitchen. “We used to play poker with these. Greens were worth the most.”
“Yup.” Charlie claps him on the back. “Greens were good. And you always managed to rack up a pretty nice little collection, if I remember correctly.”
“You taught me well,” Teddy says with a smile.
“So, hey,” Charlie says, rubbing his hands together. “Listen. I’m sorry to do this. But I was hoping I could take you up on your offer now and borrow a few bucks.”
I can feel Teddy’s eyes cut in my direction, but I stare down at the bowl of salsa. I don’t want him to see what I’m thinking, which isI knew it.
“Sure,” Teddy says, already reaching for his wallet. “How much do you need?”
“Maybe like a thousand?”
He pauses. “What?”
“Yeah, it’s stupid, really. I lost my wallet this morning and my credit card was in there, so I just need a little cash to get by until I figure it all out.”
Teddy shakes his head. “I don’t have that much here.”
“C’mon, kid,” Charlie says, his voice deliberately light. “You’re a millionaire now. You must have some cash lying around. How about five hundred?”
“Dad…”
“Or, tell you what. Maybe you can just write me a check instead. Unless there’s an ATM nearby?”
Teddy gives him a long look. “You were betting on the boat races,” he says, and it’s clear from the disappointment on his face that he suspected this all along, from the moment he saw his dad arguing up in the stands. He just didn’t want to believe it.
I close my eyes for a second, feeling like I shouldn’t be watching this unfold, shouldn’t be bearing witness to something so personal. But they’re right in the middle of the room, which means there’s no way to leave without interrupting. So instead I just stand there, trying to make myself invisible.
Charlie runs a hand through his graying hair with a sigh. “It wasn’t a real bet,” he says. “Just a little side wager. The guy next to me was bragging about his kid’s boat a few races before yours, and the thing looked like a floating shoe box, so I took the bet, but they ended up winning, and we went double or nothing on the next one, and…well, it’s not like I was at the tables in Vegas or anything.”
“You said you were done with all that,” Teddy says, and he looks so forlorn that I wish I could walk over and take his hand.
“I was,” Charlie says with a helpless shrug. “I am. It was just a onetime thing. A joke, really. Honestly it’s not a big deal.”
Teddy is chewing on his lip. “It kind of is.”
“God, Teddy,” Charlie says, impatient now. “What do you want, some kind of collateral?” He tugs off his jacket and shoves it at him. “Here, I don’t need this. There aren’t any business meetings. Is that what you want to hear?”
“You skipped them?” Teddy asks, and I realize he doesn’t yet understand what’s happening. There was never any job. There was never any business trip. There was only Charlie, hoping that by the time he patched things up with his son he’d have wrangled enough money out of him to cover the cost of it all, probably including the new suit.
