The Run Around

by Bernadette Franklin

  “I’m in this pursuit for the long haul, and at first, I’ll have to get settled, so that frequency should work to begin with. After I’m settled in the appropriate state, I can beg for additional clues to find you faster. I figure we can coordinate wedding planning through email and phone discussions should I fail to find you promptly.”

  “That sounds good. But no tracing my calls. That would be cheating. You also can’t hack into any computers to get my location. You have to find me from my clues or the gentle questioning of those who know my location. No interrogations or anything unscrupulous that might lose me my new job.”

  Rick clucked his tongue. “I suppose I can agree to those terms. Do you have any other restrictions for me?”

  “When you find me, you can’t tell my brother. You must also introduce me to your dog. I will even give you permission to grab me specifically for the purpose of meeting your dog. I want to be friends with your dog. I might get a dog, because my employer allows dogs in the office, and I’ve never had a dog before.”

  “Can I convince you to hold off on the adoption of a dog until you meet my dog?”

  “That depends. Can I steal your dog? She’s really that cute, Rick. I might have to steal her and take her home with me.”

  “Can we negotiate this after I find you?”

  I considered. “Maybe. It depends.”

  “On?”

  “How long it takes for you to bring your dog to me, how often I’ll be allowed to visit your dog, and how often I’ll be able to visit your dog after you’re married.” Reminding myself he was destined to marry someone else sucked.

  Never before had I held much interest in any man. Worse, my job for the next few months—or however long it was for the wedding to be planned—involved marrying a perfect-for-me man to someone else. In some other life, I must have been a terrible person.

  Only a terrible person deserved my awful luck.

  Rick laughed. “I should be landing in the United States within the next week or two, as I am in progress of finalizing the paperwork required to import my dog. As it would be cruel to withhold my dog from you, I would allow for open visitation outside of work hours, and should I need to take a business trip, I pay well for a trustworthy person to babysit my girl when I can’t take her with me. As for the issue of marriage, that depends on a lot of factors.”

  Of course. If we tried to list all of the factors, we might be done sometime tomorrow, and I’d be even more aware of how I intended on torturing myself for the next few months of my life. “As the answers to my first two questions are acceptable, I’m willing to ignore the third question completely for now. However, I’m not going to throw our game just because I want to meet your dog.”

  Instead of worrying about Rick, I could have a really good relationship with his beautiful Annabel Lee. She would be easy to love, and I’d happily throw away my dignity in order to babysit her when Rick and his wife went away on their honeymoon.

  With my luck, they’d take the dog, and I’d just have to face reality alone.

  “That would be boring, and it wouldn’t do if I bored you. Which state should I make arrangements for, Hope?”

  My name and his lips were a dangerous and potent combination. I may have disliked my brother’s choice of wife, but I’d hate myself every minute I worked to make certain Rick had the best wedding day possible. Creating perfect memories for him and his wife-to-be would be my pride. It would be painful, although I’d try to look on the bright side.

  Men like Fredrick existed in the world, and I could find another, and the next one might be the one for me. I could handle my crush on him like a sane adult.

  He wouldn’t realize I admired him, would like a chance for him to be in my life, and work to make sure the rest of his life started with the perfect wedding.

  I would need to spend a lot of time repeating that to myself to make sure I didn’t screw up.

  “New York,” I finally replied, aware I’d left him waiting in silence for an embarrassingly long time. “Unfortunately for you, New York State has a population of over nineteen million with five major cities with populations of over a hundred thousand. I could be in any one of them. I could also be in a smaller city.”

  “And as you’re still on a Washington area code, so if you keep that phone number, I won’t be able to tell.”

  I’d have to thank him for that reminder. “Obviously, I will not be able to change my phone number until you’ve located me.” That wouldn’t cost me a lot; I’d learned my plan came with unlimited roaming, so I could stay in New York without worrying about changing my number. “I will also refuse to speak to Mat until you have found me. He can go suck eggs, and you can tell him that for all I care.”

  “Your brother is not going to take that well, I just thought you should know.”

  “Well, he should have been a little less of an asshole and a little more grateful for the hell I went through putting his wedding together. I went from a healthy weight to a twig with ribs to fit in the damned dress in the size Amy demanded.”

  “I am going to insist that you are a healthy weight in time for my wedding, and I will hire a reasonable nutritionist to help make certain you’re in good health if needed. And I’ll have words with your brother about that. If you don’t mind me asking, how much weight did you have to lose?”

  “Twenty pounds or so. To be fair, I probably did need to lose five of those pounds. I like milkshakes a little too much.”

  “Five pounds isn’t exactly a lot in either direction. Hell, I’m usually ten pounds over, but I’ve been told I’m a muscle-bound freak.”

  “I’m not qualified to say if you’re muscular, but you don’t seem like a freak to me. If anything, you seem rather normal. I mean, how bad can you be? You have a cute dog, and she obviously loves you so much she ate your wedding invitation so you wouldn’t leave her behind. You also have a sense of humor. I never knew how entertaining funny news headlines could be until I took a baseball to the head.”

  “I’m concerned you might go out of your way to be hit with more baseballs to discover other joys in life.”

  “Can I pass on that? I didn’t want to get hit the first time. I’m just pointing out that the baseball incident had a damned good silver lining. Neither one of us had to go to that reception. I love my brother, but by the time they got through the actual ceremony, I was already done with the entire wedding.”

  “I’m still amazed there was a reception. That is not a slight against your brother, but his wife is a piece of work.”

  “I’m glad I’m not the only one who realizes that.”

  “Well, your brother did make mention he’d allowed himself to be swayed by her without consulting with you on the matter.”

  “He didn’t appreciate my blunt opinion when I spoke to him on the phone, that’s for certain.”

  “His mistake, not yours. There is one more delicate matter I was asked to bring up to you, if I happened to be able to speak cordially with you.”

  “If it’s about our parents, I’ll show up for the next major holiday.”

  “I will not count that as an easy way to get a hold of you unless I become desperate.”

  “And if you become desperate enough to crash the family dinner, you can acknowledge your defeat at my hands in front of my family. Spare yourself the humiliation. Plus, Amy will be there.”

  “They’d give Mat your number, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes, they would.”

  “I will provide a phone specifically for you to contact your parents, and you can keep it turned off except when you call them and check your voice mail. That can be my penance for becoming involved with this situation. I’ll send you money online to cover the cost of your phone and the line. Would that be fair?”

  “I can get a cheap prepaid phone to call my parents. That’s not an issue.”

  “Then you can use the money for that, but I’m not going to force you to pay for something like that, especially not when I’m a
part of why you’re avoiding certain people.”

  “Hardly. You didn’t force Mat to act like an asshole. You also didn’t force him to marry Amy. You also didn’t suggest he ask me to plan the wedding. Well, I hope you didn’t. You’ll have a lot of penance to pay if you’re the one who gave him that idea.”

  “I invited your brother to attend an event with me, which was where he met Amy.”

  Well, then. I took a few moments to decide how that changed my perspective of the man. Ultimately, it changed nothing. “You’re the reason I spent how long of my life planning my brother’s wedding?”

  “I deserve to pay some form of penance. Would it help if I told you that I hadn’t intended for them to meet?”

  “That helps a little, but I feel you have failed to appropriately warn my brother what he was getting into—and you may have failed to warn him about scorned women. You better tell me a good headline. I think I need to hear one after this, Rick.”

  “Can it be a particularly crude headline?”

  In my recent days of pursuing amusing headlines, I’d found a few crude ones, but I wondered how his definition of crude and mine differed. “Sure.”

  “Florida Man Vapes Semen.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I spluttered for a few moments before asking, “But why?”

  “That headline has been haunting me for years. I can’t even imagine why. Worse, the article was unclear about where, exactly, he acquired the semen.”

  I closed my mouth, lifted my hand, and scratched at my scalp. “I think I need another headline, but one not as likely to scar me for life.”

  “This one was later revealed to be a hoax, but did you hear about the time Florida Man killed his imaginary friend and turned himself in to the police? The mug shot that went with that headline was spectacular.”

  “But it sounds so real,” I protested. “That’s a hoax?”

  “Fooled me, too. I mean, it’s totally something Florida Man would do. This one isn’t a hoax, though. Florida Man Breaks into Jail to Visit his Friends.”

  Florida Man existed to confuse me. “But why?” Florida Man also would never cease to amaze me, and despite everything, I laughed. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Meth?”

  “Bath salts with a twist.”

  “Did they let him see his friends when they arrested him? That seems important.”

  “Well, he got charged with some felony criminal mischief, assault against law enforcement officers, and driving while under the influence, so assuming they put him in the same prison, I’d say so. Florida Man has taught me many important life lessons.”

  “Don’t do drugs comes to mind.” I shook my head. As always, my doubts surfaced. When I’d up and left home, anger over my brother’s callous words had done a good job of making certain I followed through with my impulsive decision to change my life. Time did what it did best, casting doubt on my choice. “Do you think I’m being stupid, Rick?”

  “No, not at all. Everyone has limits. When you hit your limit, you got yourself a car you like, you secured a better job for yourself, and you moved somewhere with more opportunities. I don’t think that’s stupid at all. Impulsive? For certain—but according to Mat, you’re so meticulous most of the time that something like moving to a new city just isn’t something you’d do. Too much could go wrong, and you’re all about making sure nothing can go wrong. Mat’s wedding is a perfect example. You prepared for every contingency.”

  “I needed to, too.” I sighed. “I’m going to be in debt forever repaying favors.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought I had already told you she lost the deposits for most of the vendors she picked because she cancelled some, pissed the others off, and otherwise made a mess of everything.”

  “I think you had mentioned something about it, but truth be told, I was more concerned about you having taken a baseball to the head. I hadn’t clued in that meant you had personally taken on the debts for the replacements. I thought your brother would have paid for it. How significant were the losses, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “If I start thinking about how much money she lost Mat, I will just get even more pissed off about this situation. With the exception of the caterer, which I’d handled, everything else became a bust. Basically, I bribed the entire replacement wedding staff to cover my ass after Amy screwed up all the wedding plans. I left the papers proving it for my brother to find along with the ball and chain.”

  “He was not happy about the ball and chain, by the way.”

  “Tough shit. Honestly, that’s exactly why I’m here instead of back home doing the same old grind. I refuse to regret it.”

  Rick laughed. “I see you still have a healthy dose of resentment towards your brother—or his wife.”

  “Can it be both?”

  “It can be both. For the record, I have the ball and chain in my possession, and I have plans for it. I’m making some modifications. I asked someone I know to evaluate the work on it, and he was really impressed. You really didn’t skimp on that thing, did you?”

  “Well, it had to be suitable for Mat’s wedding, so I couldn’t just go with any old ball and chain. It needed to be nice. The paint work cost me extra. I had it made custom, as I wanted it to be heavy enough she couldn’t move it but not so heavy I couldn’t move it. Unlike her, who likely consumes air and water to stay thin, I did a lot of working out.”

  “It weighs eighty pounds. I know this because I paid to have it shipped.”

  “I am rather proud of my ability to lift that ball and chain at my leisure, although I’m retiring from the gym life and taking up a new career as someone who walks a healthy distance while enjoying a milkshake.”

  “With a cherry on top?”

  “The cherry is the best part. Don’t leave your cherry unattended around me, because I might even become bold enough to steal it.”

  At the rate Rick kept chuckling, he’d make it through the rest of his day with a grin plastered onto his pretty face. “I’ll make sure to bring an entire jar of them. If I tried to lure you into my car with them, would it work?”

  I snorted. “Just lure me into your car with your dog. I already told you that you could take me just about anywhere if you were delivering me to your dog.”

  “I see you have fallen helplessly in love with my dog.”

  “How could I not? I saw her picture. She’s just a big, fluffy bundle of love. She chewed up your invitation so you wouldn’t leave her. You should surrender your dog to me. If I can’t take her with me, I’m not going. Well, if it’s more than for an hour or two. Long enough to go to the grocery store and places where my dog shouldn’t go.”

  “I don’t leave her that often,” Rick replied, his tone amused. “I’m not giving up my dog. Despite having cruelly left her to attend your brother’s wedding, I do love her dearly.”

  “You would be a terrible person if you did not love that dog dearly.”

  “I can’t argue with that. Do you want me to do anything about your brother?”

  “No, but thank you. I can handle him.”

  “Through steadfast avoidance?”

  “If he’s not willing to put in the work to say his apology to my face, he can sulk with his wife. So far, you’ve done a far superior job of demonstrating a willingness to put in some effort.”

  “You’re quite stubborn, I see.”

  He had no idea how stubborn I planned to be. “Well, you are willing to put in effort. He’s willing to send me an email without a subject line. I didn’t open it, by the way, because I deserve better than that.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “If you talk to my brother, just tell him I’ve lost my mind and will be unavailable until I’ve found it again. It’ll take a while. My new job will be busy, I think. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I’ll just tell him you’re the end-game boss he has to quest to find, only to discover he needs special equipment and a fancy sword for any hope of defeating you.”


  I hadn’t taken Rick to be a gamer, and I laughed. “The last time that happened to me, I wanted to throw the controller and console through a window. I haven’t had a lot of time to play games. I’d go over to a friend’s house to play them. I’m too boring to have a system.”

  “You should get one. There’s little as fun as playing a game where you can die if you look at a boss wrong and you’re unprepared.”

  “At least you didn’t say relaxing.”

  “There’s nothing relaxing about having my ass handed to me by a damned group of pixels. Once, I called in sick from work because I had to defeat the mob. I was going to tell everyone I had caught the flu because it took me a week to be able to finally defeat him, but my mother showed up and caught me yelling at my console. It didn’t go over well.”

  “It didn’t? Why not?”

  “She had to fly in from London to do it.”

  Ouch. “Did you forget to answer your phone or something?”

  “I deliberately turned it off so no one would disturb me and Annabel Lee. For the record, she loved my impromptu gaming vacation.”

  I bet she had loved every moment spent fawning over her owner. “You might be able to convince me to play a game and get a console.”

  “I’ll email you with some recommendations, I’ll give you a list of games I play, and when I can be found playing them. If you have a decent computer, there are some computer games we could play, too. Since I’m coming to the United States, it’ll be easier to find a time to play together.”

  “I should get a better computer,” I admitted. “I can afford it. I think. I hope. I don’t know how much my apartment will cost each month. I have a date with a real estate agent to find a place early next week. The company is providing one.”

  “You’ll be all right, Hope. Of that I have no doubt.”

  Well, at least one of us had no doubt. In any case, I’d fake it until I made it. It would be enough.

  It had to be.

  Eight

  One of the company’s accountants hired male prostitutes.