“Nah.” I shake my head. “I’m living out at the swamp house. Mom’s been good about keeping it fitted up all these years.”
“Bayou water running through his veins.” Cash hooks a thumb my way. “Can’t tell you how many times we’d be up in those dusty Afghan mountains and he’d start going on about Spanish moss, marsh grass, and muskrats.” He makes a face. “If you ask me, the swamp is nothing but a place for things that sting and bite. But he sees magic in it.” He leans across the sofa and punches my shoulder. “Recite that poem you wrote last month.”
The last thing I want to do is to recite a silly poem. I want Maggie to see the man I’ve become. See that I’m so much more than the soft-spoken, pimple-skinned, head-in-the-clouds boy I used to be.
“Now’s not the time,” I grit through my teeth.
Cash frowns. “Why are you always hiding your light under a bushel, huh?”
Before I can answer, a black-and-white cat slinks from beneath the sofa near my feet. It sniffs my boots, then rubs itself against my calf. Its deep, satisfied purr is loud enough to shake the windows in their frames.
Maggie’s eyes widen. “Well, would you look at that.”
“What?” I reach down to pet the cat. Years ago, one of our Afghan guides had a big tomcat who took a particular shine to me. I remember thinking there was something soothing about soft fur and a rumbling purr.
“That’s Sheldon,” she says. “Usually, he doesn’t like anyone.”
“Sheldon?” I scan the place for the other cat, the tabby, and I find him quietly riding the Roomba around the kitchen. “And that one over there is Leonard?” Giving her the side-eye, I venture, “You’re in my spot.”
She immediately comes back with, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested!”
Like I said, copacetic. We laugh, and just that easily the years separating us are ripped away.
“What am I missing?” Cash asks.
“The Big Bang Theory.” The smile Maggie turns on me makes my heart skip a beat.
Here’s the thing about her. She has a small mole under the arch of her left eyebrow and a little gap between her two front teeth. Both things make her perfect face all that much more interesting. And when she smiles? Oh, when she smiles, the whole world is a better place.
Cash shakes his head. “Never could understand why everyone likes it so much.”
“I tried to get him to watch it with me,” I tell her. “He can’t stand the live studio audience. Says all those people laughing is a distraction.”
She shrugs. “To each his own, I guess.”
Cash glances back and forth between us, and something flashes in his eyes. Something I don’t recognize. Then he looks around as if expecting more creatures to pop out of the woodwork. “So, how many animals you got in your menagerie, Maggie?”
“You’ve met them all.” She sighs. “In a place this small, three is all I can manage. Although I still volunteer at the animal shelter one day a week, so…” She shrugs and grins. “It’s probably only a matter of time before I find a way to fit more in.”
“Still a bleeding heart when it comes to our furry friends.” He turns to me. “You remember the time she found that squirrel with the broken leg in Jackson Square? She cried those big crocodile tears and begged you to help it. How many months did you spend nursing that silly thing back to health?”
“Two,” I recall.
He chuckles. “She’s a bleeding heart for animals, and you’re a bleeding heart for her.”
The tips of my ears heat. “What’re friends for if not to construct tiny leg splints outta Popsicle sticks, am I right?” I wink at Maggie.
She considers me for a moment, as if to gauge my words, as if to reconcile all the changes in my appearance with the boy she once knew. Finally, she says, “You were always the best of us, Luc.”
“Still is,” Cash declares. Then he adds, apropos of nothing, “So who’s the guy in the hat?” and I stifle a groan.
“Jean-Pierre, my upstairs neighbor,” Maggie tells him.
“Not your boyfriend?” Cash lifts an eyebrow.
“No.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
