My thumbs move to type but it’s like with Mom’s messages—I’m overwhelmed with too much feeling for pixels on a screen, too many things I want to say to tame with twenty-six letters, even with special characters and emojis. But I just write back:thanks sarah!
And then a text arrives from Mark Winterson, asking if I can come over this weekend.
Chapter
38
When I get to Mark Winterson’s place on Sunday afternoon, I stop outside the door and take a few deep breaths before ringing the bell.
Okay, you’ve got this. Don’t think about Greg. Now is the time to compartmentalize and pretend you’re in love with Mark Winterson.
I ring the bell, and it takes him a while to answer. I’m about to text, but the door finally opens, and there’s the man I’ve spent all week searching for, looking like he hasn’t slept in days.
“Sorry,” he says, “I know I said I wanted to teach you tennis today, but…”
“Mark, honey, what’s wrong?” I’m trying to put all the sweetness I can into my tone, and he gives me a confused glance.Shit, did I overdo it?
But then he shakes his head and rubs his eyes. “Been working some late nights on this Erickson project. Maybe I should take a nap before we head out.”
“Do you want me to leave? Come back later?”
“No, stay,” he says, pulling me in by the wrist.
He leads me over to the couch, and when I sit down on one end, he puts a pillow in my lap and rests his head on it.
“Sometimes I just feel like I’m in over my head,” he mumbles.
God, tell me about it.
From this angle, he seems like a soft, breakable thing, not imposing at all. I put a hesitant hand on the top of his head, and he nestles into it.
A weird little swell of affection kicks up—I guess these things don’t turn off on a dime—and my anxiety spikes, realizing I don’t quite understand what to do here. Should I get him to talk more about Erickson?
“Like there are these—” He yawns. “These expectations and there’s no way I’m going to meet them.”
“I feel like that all the time.”
He opens his eyes. “Why doyoufeel that way?”
Whatever I felt a second ago ebbs back again.
“We’re talking about you right now,” I say, running my fingers through his hair, and his eyelids flutter closed.
“Sometimes I think—Fuck, I’m screwed.” A smug smile creeps up on his face. “But I always pull it off in the end.”
We’re really not the same, after all.
“Does Erickson put a lot of pressure on you?”
He curls up a bit more and presses his cheek into the pillow. “Yeah,” he says, voice thicker with sleep. “But it’s because he thinks I have potential. And he trusts me.”
“Did you know him before you started working here?”
“Mm-hmm. He recruited me. He’s, um.” He swallows. “He’s a friend of my dad’s.”
“Oh, so you’ve known him for a while.”
He rolls onto his back. “I know what you’re thinking.” There’s a defensive edge in his voice.
