“Oh my god, he really was neat,” Ren says, half in amusement, half in wonder, arms wrapping around her stomach when she wanders down the hallway into Matt’s forever empty house.
“Looks exactly like he left it,” I tell her, feet somehow still rooted to the spot in the foyer. “Fresh off the World Series celebration, and there wasn’t even a dish left in the sink when we went up to the cottage for the weekend.”
Those words snag, but they don’t echo endlessly through my chest like they would have a few weeks ago. And for the first time in a while, I imagine what he’d say.
I can feel him—arm slung lazily over my shoulders while he gives me a shake, whispering just for me, “You would use my clean house to impress a girl. Penthouse too messy?”
“Not just a girl,” I’d tell him.
Thatnot just a girlglances back over her shoulder at me and starts walking backwards with one hand stretched out in invitation. “We can go in together, if you think that would help.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Okay.”
My hand meets hers, and when her fingers slide in beside mine, I imagine Matt clapping me on the back, how he’d tell me not to fuck it up with her.
But he’s not here, and as much as that doesn’t hurt the way it did a month ago, I’ve got no way to tell him that someone else already did fuck it up with her, and even though I think it’d be an honour to spend the rest of my life on my knees picking up the pieces, she wants to pick them up herself.
Ren rolls her fingers along the back of my hand, tapping where the inked M stretches. I’ve started to notice she does that every time she touches the tattoo. Like she’s introducing herself to Matty each time or saying her own version of hello.
It does help, walking into the house with her. I don’t come here if I can avoid it, and it’s a weird sort of feeling in my chest—happiness, maybe—when I notice how good of a job the housekeeper’s done making sure everything’s still the way he liked it.
Ren fakes a gasp, her fingers squeezing mine, when we get into the living room. “I’m besmirching his clean floors and tidy house by being here, Miller.”
The back of my neck heats, and I force a sideways grin. “You’re really not.”
The same pictures hang in a gallery wall behind the couch. Illustrations of vintage cars. Paintings of his favourites he had commissioned. A sketch of the stadium. Our rookie cards, hung proudly between all of them.
“Is that you?” She points towards the frame in the middle left.
“My rookie card, yeah,” I say roughly.
She glances at me, cheeks soft with a gentle smile. “He framed your rookie card? And hung it in his living room?”
“It wasn’t, uh, out of unending, unyielding pride or anything like that.” I snort. “We had a bet. That’s why they’re both framed. They’re from the first print of both of our cards ... and, uh, we kept them untouched like that because we wanted to see ... whose would be worth more when we both retired.” I flinch, pressing a fist to my mouth. “But, uh, I don’t think mine’s going to be worth as much as his now. Limited number of cards with the best pitcher who ever played floating around.”
Ren lifts our joined hands when she shrugs. “Feels a bit like he cheated.”
“By dying?” I ask flatly.
“Yes,” she says, tipping her chin up with this sort of stubborn set to her mouth that does something to me.
But mostly, it makes me feel like laughing. “You might be onto something, Ren.”
“I can have Imani come up with some sort of statistical modelling to figure out what would have happened?” she offers, and even though it’s a joke, I can tell by the way her eyes soften that she’d actually do it, if she thought it would help me.
“Nah. We can let that one stay a mystery.” I jerk my head towards the sliding doors along the back wall, leading towards the yard. “Come on, let’s see if we can find a glove that fits your tiny, fossil-brush-holding hands.”
“Hey!” she says, indignant, when she follows me out back. “I’ll have you know, these hands can also hold a ZOIC PalaeoTech Bronto.”
“No clue what that is.”
Ren snatches her hand back from mine with exaggerated, pursed lips, and she folds her arms across her chest with narrowed eyes. “It’s only the most powerful air scribe in the game. Really great for heavy-duty matrix removal.”
“And it’s—big?”
The taut line of her mouth dips into a pout, and she gives me a flat look before she laughs, wrinkling her nose. “No. It’s not that much bigger than any other air scribe. It just has more pressure.”
“Okay, well, uh, let’s see if we’ve got a glove that fits your still tiny, but more impressive, ZOIC-PalaeoTech-Bronto-holding hands.”
