“I should…” He doesn’t finish. He stands abruptly and walks past me, out through the doorway. I hear the party take him back. I hear Tomáš say his name.
I sit there for a count of ten. Maybe twenty. Long enough to feel the warmth where he was go cooler under my hand. I can sit here for the rest of the night and it won’t come back.
The not-knowing what just happened with Damián is going to be a thing I carry. Fine. I’ll carry it. I have carried heavy things before. Tomáš taught me how. You hold it in one hand and keep moving the other hand. You don’t put it down because there’s nowhere to put it down. You walk back into the room. You let people celebrate with you. And you don’t think about something that might have been.
Tomáš sees me and shouts my name and a beer appears in my hand from somewhere. Šíma is in the middle of claiming to someone I can do zero pull-ups now. The neighbors are stillhere. Kovár is starting another toast. Damián is on the other side of the room and doesn’t look up.
Chapter 1: Tobík
The air presses against my arms when I step onto the path, warm and thick the way Atlanta does in late June, and nine months in I still notice. Brno air is dry and polite. This air has opinions. It sits on my skin and decides it lives there.
The Beltline stretches ahead through trees so green they look like they’re showing off. I walk this path most mornings when I am not on road trips. I know which roots push the pavement up. I know which stretch smells like honeysuckle and which smells like the coffee shop a block over.
Most days I focus on the people and animals around me. The vegetables at the pop-up market. The new restaurant that opened. I am present and focused.
Today, my mind has fast-forwarded to two days from now, when the Czech national team comes to Atlanta for the World Cup group stage. Tomáš will be in this city.
And Damián will be in this city. I have been thinking about this since the draw came out months ago.
The flower stand woman is setting up near Piedmont, arms full of sunflowers taller than her head.
“Good morning.”
“Morning, honey.” She holds one up. “Take it. You posted that photo of my stand last week and I sold out before lunch.”
“I cannot take your flowers for free.”
“You can and you will. Hold it up next to your face.” She takes my phone before I can argue. “Smile. No, baby, a real one. The one you do with the dogs. There it is. You look like a summer postcard.”
“Thank you. That is very kind.”
“It’s not kind. It’s marketing. Go find that big golden one before he tears his mama’s arm off.”
She is right. Bagel has spotted me. Claire is holding the leash with both hands and losing. Bagel is a golden retriever roughly the size of a piece of furniture who has decided, every Tuesday and Thursday since October, that I am the most important thing on this path. He pulls forward with the commitment of a creature who does not understand restraint. Claire lets go, not on purpose but in the way people accept physics.
“He heard your shoes,” Claire says. “I swear he knows your footsteps from fifty yards.”
“He is very perceptive.”
“He’s obsessed is what he is. Bagel, sweetie, at least pretend you have dignity.”
Bagel doesn’t pretend. He reaches me and sits on my left foot, his full weight, committed, vibrating with satisfaction. I crouch and scratch behind his ears, and his eyes close, and his mouth opens into the wide grin that simplifies everything.
“You are very brave,” I tell him. “Coming all the way across the path for me.”
“He’d cross the city for you,” Claire says. “I barely exist on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“That is not true. He loves you very much.”
“He tolerates me. He loves you. There’s a difference and he is making it very clear.”
I take a selfie with him and the sunflower. The skyline pink behind us, glass and climbing. In the photo I am doing the face Mueller once captioned this man is trying SO HARD to be cool. I was not trying. I was happy. Apparently those look the same on me.
The coffee shop is three minutes past the spot where Claire and Bagel turn around. Jordan starts my americano when I come through the door.
“Morning, Sunshine.” Jordan slides the cup across. “So someone asked about you yesterday. A guy. Recognized you from the photo we reposted. Wanted to know if you really come in every week.”
“Well, that is what you tell me.”
