The Soccer Star's Forgotten Wife novel · Chapter 17 of 32

Chapter 17: Free

"A ref with a grudge," I said. "That's a promotion. Yesterday I was the help."

The agent laughed.

Robin came down one step.

Cody came down two.

The agent looked at Cody, at his tie and his reading glasses and his height, and the smile got a little thinner.

"Mr. Duffield," he said. "Lovely tie. Is it for court, or for a funeral?"

"Chemistry," Cody said. "I teach it. It's mostly about things that blow up when you put them together."

I'd never heard his voice like that.

Flat and very quiet.

"How's the photographer?" I said. "Same rate as Kansas City?"

For one half second the agent's eyes did something.

Then he smiled again.

"I've no idea what that means."

"Tomorrow you will."

He tipped his head, polite as a waiter.

He walked down the steps and across the street to the black car from Pueblo.

It had been parked there the whole time.

Robin shook her head.

"I'm going to need a cheeseburger the size of my head," she said.

The diner was on South Broadway, a long counter and red booths and a waitress who called everybody hon.

Robin had called ahead.

There was a sheet cake waiting on our table with white frosting and red letters.

"FREE," it said, and under it, smaller, "TO A GOOD HOME."

"I asked for it to say 'divorced'," Robin said. "The bakery got nervous."

The quiet assistant from Colorado Springs turned up in a Rockies cap and ordered pie and shook my hand and still didn't say a word.

He'd come forty miles to not say it.

I hugged him and he went pink.

My dad called on Robin's phone and she put him on speaker in the middle of the table, next to the cake.

"Is it done?" he said.

"It's done, Dad."

"Good." A pause. "Is the linesman there?"

"Assistant referee, sir," Cody said.

"Feed her," my dad said, and hung up.

We ate the whole cake.

Robin ate most of the T in FREE.

At some point I opened my purse and took out the ring.

It sat on the red tabletop in the light, small and plain, gold, the only thing I'd ever owned with his name on the receipt.

Robin looked at it.

"Retainer," I said, and slid it across the table to her. "Sell it. You'll get some of it back."

"I wanted cash."

"It's gold. It's basically cash."

She picked it up and held it to her eye and looked at Cody through it.

"He's still here," she said. "Damn."

Cody laughed.

He'd been laughing all night, and every time he did, he looked at me.

Junie was at her mom's for the week.

Cody had said that in the courthouse hallway, twice.

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