“Okay, seriously?” I ask. “I’ve tried to keep quiet because I didn’t want to make this any worse than it already is, but do you honestly think this is appropriate?”
Heather looks startled at having come back into contact with reality, but she still finishes the thought. “I just wanted to tell you that you convinced me not to settle for someone who wasn’t going to make me feel the way you made me feel that day,” she says. “So, thank you.”
She’s still talking.
“It was a long time ago,” Heather says, turning to Ash. “I’m married now.”
“Well, it’s been great catching up,” I tell Heather. “Good luck with the marriage.”
This time, I don’t wait to see if Heather’s going to stop. I just start walking toward the car.
“Well, all right,” Heather calls, now behind me. “It’s good to see you!”
Ash catches up to me a couple seconds later. She looks over her shoulder and back.
I’m still not sure how I’d managed to get this far with Ash. I mean, the first time we met, I was half-naked with someone else’s blood on me. That’s not really the sort of thing that makes for a great first impression. That’s usually the sort of thing that’ll get people calling the cops.
Even with her nurse’s stomach, I was pretty damn lucky to get even a second look from Ash. Tack onto that my conman brother and the fact I used to pick up women in the food court at the mall, and I think we’re about done here. All that’s left is the breakup itself.
This is going to suck.
“You know,” Ash says as we near the car, “I get that you’ve been with other people and everything, but I swear that woman would just not stop talking.”
“It was a long time ago,” I tell her. “Well, I guess it was only a couple of years ago, but I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” Ash says. “I would have caught you if you were stepping out on me. You’re not a very subtle kind of guy, Mason.”
I don’t know how she’s so okay with what just happened. I’m not sure that I would be. Knowing your partner has been with other people isn’t a big deal, but having one of those other people walk up and give a detailed-enough account of the dirty hour or so we spent together back in the day is sort of a different thing.
I want to ask her why she’s not more bothered, but I don’t want to press my luck, either. Ash genuinely has nothing to worry about from Heather. Apart from spotting her in and around the food court of the New Hills Mall, I haven’t seen her at all since that day. We never had a repeat performance.
It would be great if I knew Ash was just being cool about this, but I’m still getting that feeling she’s only being cool because of whatever she’s hiding. Maybe her secret is so bad that she’s trying to soften my reaction by letting me off the hook about Heather and the wildly inappropriate conversation we just endured.
The question I’m really asking myself right now is whether this is something that I really need to get to the bottom of right now or not. I can press Ash, possibly even getting her to spill whatever’s been so on her mind; or I can just let it drop and hope for the best.
“We never got to the chocolate, did we?” I ask in the most thinly-veiled attempt at changing the conversation possible.
“It’ll keep,” Ash tells me.
Chapter Sixteen
Crimes and Crimes
Ash
Mason and I are sitting in the courtroom, waiting for Chris to be brought forward for his arraignment. They just brought him in, shackled in his red-and-white striped jail garb.
He was supposed to be arraigned half an hour ago, but it looks like the court is backed up with people in for possession of cannabis and others who are there because of identity theft.
“What do you think they’re going to do?” I whisper to Mason as the judge rules that the defendant must surrender his vehicle and he remands the teenaged pothead to state custody, pending trial.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Knowing Chris, though, I’m sure we don’t even know the half of it.”
“Did he ever tell you exactly what he did?” I ask.
“No,” Mason says. “I think—” he starts, but stops when the bailiff gives him a dirty look.
The judge calls the next defendant, a man accused of embezzling over $500,000 dollars from a local charity. The prosecutor explains that only about a third of the money has been recovered. The judge sets bail at $20,000.