“Is this what you’ve been doing all day?” I ask, tentatively.
“No, I . . .” she trails off and finally turns to me.
“Did you go to the stadium?”
And the way I say it, she knows the difference. Lots of teams have stadiums, including this one, but when you’re in New York and you say,the stadium, you mean the big ballpark in the Bronx.
“I did. I didn’t want to give Forbes a chance to change his mind. I went there and we had a good long talk and he offered me the job.”
“And did you take it?” I ask, trying desperately to keep my voice neutral. Her little smirk is enough for me to know that I didn’t succeed.
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“I wanted to talk you about it first.”
“Frankie, I . . . I don’t expect you to . . .”
“I know, I know you don’t, but this is how I operate. I’m in your life now and you’re in mine, right?”
I hesitate and open my mouth, but no words come out.
“Is that . . . not what you want?” she asks, her voice small, and that jolts me into action.
“Absolutely not. I just thought . . .” I trail off, not able to form the words.
“What?”
“I thought you might not want this anymore.”
“Charlie?” she says, “No, no way. We’re together. I’d call you my boyfriend, but it feels like the wrong word for a guy pushing forty.”
I roll my eyes at the jab at my age, but reach out to take her hands as I say, “You can call me whatever the hell you want, but, yeah, we are together.”
“So, if that’s the case,” she says, looking up into my eyes, “then when big life things happen, big decisions and choices, then I want to talk to you about it beforehand.”
“You should take the job.”
“Charlie . . .”
I release her hands, but only to raise mine to her face, cupping her cheeks softly, my thumbs brushing against the soft skin. “It’s everything you’ve worked for. You earned this and more than that. You had to work twice as hard and do it in heels. Take the jobandbe with me.”
She leans into the touch with a little sigh of relief.
“But on the plane you said . . .”
“I was being an idiot, a sentimental, selfish idiot.”
“Hey, that sentimental, selfish idiot happens to be my boyfriend.”
“I thought I was too old to be called boyfriend?”
“Man-friend?” she says, and then immediately screws up her face in disgust. “God, no, that sounds like someone your divorced grandma brings around. Significant other? Partner?”
Husband.
I don’t say it aloud. It’s way too soon. Way too fast.
