Page 111 of A Matter of Time

“Yes,” he corrected me.

“Whatever,” I said dismissively.

He looked up at me for a long minute. “Awfully confident today.”

“Were you serious before? Do you really want me to beg?”

He sighed before leaning forward, clasping his hands. “No.”

“Then?”

“I’m mad at myself and taking it out on you because I can.”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you also sorry for not calling me yesterday when you got back into town like you promised you would?”

He groaned.

“Well?”

“Yes. I’m sorry for that as well.”

I tilted my head back and forth, taking that in. “Is all this because you don’t wanna talk about the trip, but you should, and you’re not ready to discuss it with your friends.”

“That’s right.”

It made sense now. “Okay,” I said, taking a breath. “Why’re you mad at yourself?”

“Because I allowed myself to be pressured into making the trip.”

“Or maybe you were just curious.”

“That too, but mostly I felt, for whatever reason, that I should. As though I owed that to my biological parents.”

“I think that’s human, don’t you?”

He huffed out a breath and leaned back on his couch.

“Maybe if you tell me just the facts, you’ll feel better.”

“Why?”

“Because then, when you tell Jude, it won’t be the first time, and that might be easier.”

He thought about that a moment and then leaned forward again, holding my gaze. “Get the chair.”

Crossing back to his desk, I picked up the chair I’d been sitting in earlier and carried it over to the couch, putting it down in front of him and then taking a seat. “Hit me.”

“So I took a cab from the airport to their place in Mesquite, and the house is huge. I don’t know what I was thinking, but for some reason I imagined them poor.”

I tried to keep my face blank.

He exhaled suddenly. “Go ahead.”

“What?”