Evvie Drake Starts Over(42)

“Ooh, the other woman,” Dean said. “How do you feel about that?”

“Well, it means I have to make my own pancakes, which is a drag.”

“I don’t think that’s what I was asking.”

“No, I know it wasn’t. I’m happy he’s happy. I wish he didn’t have to cancel, but I don’t blame him. Or her, or whoever. If I were dating him, I wouldn’t want him to have a standing commitment every Saturday morning. I’d expect him to be able to go out, or go away, or…stay in. Or whatever.”

   “Or whatever,” he repeated. “Everything’s okay with you guys?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” He swore gently and let a new silver ball go.

“Don’t expect me to be jealous, it’s such a cliché. She’s not the first person he’s dated in the last four years; she’s just lasted the longest.”

“I thought maybe you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t know her very well. I mean, I know her, and she was at his birthday in February, but I haven’t talked to her much.”

“She’s probably terrified,” Dean said, as he knocked the machine with his hip.

“I think that’s cheating, if you bump into it,” Evvie said. “And she’s terrified of what?”

“She’s probably terrified of you.”

“Why would she be terrified of me?”

“Seriously? Evvie, how many people, since she started dating Andrew, do you think have told her that they thought he was dating you? Or waiting to date you? Or trying to date you? You live here; you know all this bored-ass gossip. I get you guys—you know, sort of—but if I were Monica, I’d think you would be like…some crazy combination of his mother, his ex-wife, his older sister, and his manager. You’ve got to admit, it’s…you know.”

“No, what?”

“Intense.”

“Well, I don’t think she’s going to have to see much of me anytime soon, so she’s got that going for her. And what do you mean by you get us ‘sort of’?”

“I’m saying it’s unusual.”

“What’s unusual?”

“This platonic soulmate thing you do is not something that most people do.”

   “No, I know.” A buzzer went off. “It just…it happened, you know?”

“Fate?”

“Domestic necessity,” she said. “When he got divorced, Lilly was a baby and Rose was a toddler. And Lori was…poof.” She made a motion with her hands like a magic trick. “Did you know she took all the spoons? For some reason, when she set up her new place, she wanted more spoons. He wanted it to be over, and he wanted it to be easy, so he told her—even though, for the record, I told him not to—‘Take whatever you want.’ So she took all the spoons from their kitchen. I went over there one morning a week after Lori moved out, and Rose was trying to eat cereal with a plastic fork.”

“Kell didn’t order five of everything for him?”

“He didn’t tell her. But he told me. So I brought him some spoons. And I bought him a cookbook. I stayed with them when he had to go out. I was staying with them the night Lori called and said her mom had died, and I rubbed Rose’s back until she fell asleep. I taught Andy…well, I tried to teach him how to braid their hair.”

“He told me you saved his life.”

“He did?”

“Yeah.” The ball Dean was playing rolled down into the depths, and he looked hard at her. “And all I’m saying is: that takes up space. He’s got kids, an ex, a mother, he’s got his regular friends. And he’s got you, the totally no-big-deal platonic woman friend he tells everybody saved his life.” He reached over to the nearby coffee table and grabbed a sip of coffee. “All I’m saying is that it could be intense.”

“Point taken. You really have seen a lot of psychologists. So, what are you up to today besides this?”

“Well, there’s some conditioning work with the team, and then I’m supposed to talk to this reporter.” At her surprised look, he nodded as he shot a new ball. “I know. I like this one, though. He wants to write about what guys do after they’re done. He said he wanted to profile somebody who didn’t retire voluntarily. That was his expression. ‘Didn’t retire voluntarily.’ It’s a fuckin’ polite way of saying ‘crashed so hard you left a crater they turned into a swimming hole.’?”

   “And you’re sure you want to talk to him?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m sure, no. But at some point, I have to figure out what I’m doing besides living in your house and bumming around with a bunch of high school juniors. I’m going to have to stick my head out eventually and see whether it’s six more weeks of winter out there or what.”

“Mm, I’m afraid you already missed Groundhog Day.”

“Well, then for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll stick my head out and see if there’s six more weeks of not-Irish idiots throwing up on the sidewalk.”

“There you go.”

Watching Dean try to play pinball turned out to be a pretty decent way to blow a weekend morning. Still, she missed the coffee warmups, and the bacon, and she missed sitting across from someone who found a babysitter every single weekend, so they could sit around and talk about nothing in particular.