“Anything. Unlike you, I’m not picky.”
Emerie smiled and turned to walk back to her office. I stopped her to ask a question that had been on my mind since dinner with Roman last night.
“What kind of psychologist are you? Do you specialize?”
“I do. I thought I told you. I’m a marriage counselor.”
“A marriage counselor?”
“Yes, I work to save troubled marriages.”
“We definitely didn’t discuss that. I’d have remembered, considering I also work with troubled marriages—to dissolve them permanently.”
“Is it a problem?”
I shook my head. “Shouldn’t be.”
Famous last words.
Emerie
“Here are a few more messages.”
Drew had just hung up the phone after waving me into his office. I set the bag containing our lunch on his desk and handed him the little slips of paper. He shuffled through them quickly and held one up.
“If this guy calls back—Jonathon Gates—you have my permission to hang up on him.”
“Can I call him a name first?”
Drew looked amused. “What would you call him?”
“That depends. What did he do wrong?”
“He beats his wife.”
“Oh, God. Okay.” I twisted my lips as I thought of a good name for Mr. Gates. “I’d call him a fucking animal, and then hang up on him.”
Drew chuckled. “You don’t curse like a New Yorker.”
“What do you mean?”
“You pronounce the entire word. F-u-c-k-i-n-g.”
“How should I pronounce it?”
“Fuckin. Leave off the hard g.”
“Fuckin,” I repeated.
“It sounds stiff. You should practice more so it sounds natural.”
I reached into the bag and pulled out the food I’d ordered. With a smile, I offered it to him. “Here’s your fuckin lunch.”
“Nice.” He smiled. “Keep it up. You’ll sound like Tess in no time.”
“Tess?”
“My secretary who’s out because she had hip surgery. She’s sixty and looks like Mary Poppins, but she swears like a sailor.”