Page 23 of The Outline


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I didn’t have the full picture of Renn’s relationship with his brothers, but knowing that his father had died, and based on what I’d just seen, I had to assume it went beyond birthday cards and the occasional ballgame.

A minute later, I watched as Pete came into Starbucks and made a beeline for the boys.

“Thanks for coming to pick them up,” Renn spoke to his uncle in a stilted voice.

“No problem, kid. Happy to hel—Sadie?”

“Hey, Pete.”

“What are you doing here?” He looked questioningly from me to his nephew.

“I’m Renn’s morning appointment.” I wanted to make sure there was no lingering weirdness between me and Pete. “I guess I have you to thank for the fact that Renn didn’t need to cancel altogether.”

“Yeah…appears so.”

Renn gathered up the boys’ backpacks. Giving them hugs, he ushered his brothers to the door with instructions to wait outside for their uncle. Once they were off, Renn sat back down and angled his chair toward mine, knees touching, making sure Pete had a clear view of it. Renn gripped the back of my chair behind my neck and leaned in near my ear—much closer than necessary—before asking if I was ready to leave.

Pete gave him one last look, and then glanced at me. He puffed his cheeks up and blew the air out slowly as he stepped away. “Alright, guess I’ll get the boys home. See you later.”

Well. Renn hadn’t exactly pissed on my leg, but he’d certainly added fuel to Pete’s assumption that there was more between us than just a client-artist relationship. I wondered again about their tenuous bond, and where Robbie and Gage fit in. There was so much about Renn I still didn’t know, so many more potential obstacles to face if we tried to make anything happen post-tattoo. I’d promised Zach I would keep an open mind, but when I thought about Henri-in-my-head, the question mark where my career plans should be—not to mention the age difference—my mind spun. And those were just deterrents on my side. As this morning proved, Renn had concerns of his own.

Were a strong connection and undeniable chemistry enough to offset all the other hurdles? I had two more months to figure it out. For now, Renn and I needed to head across the street so he could add some color to my tattoo.

December 31, 2013

“Sadie, why doyou have to be so fucking dramatic all the time? It’s New Year’s Eve, and it didn’t seem like too much of a stretch that we’d want to spend it with our friends.” Henri stomped around the apartment, yanking his two-hundred-dollar tie off his neck and tossing it angrily across the room before going to work on his shirt buttons.

Great. He’d only been home five minutes and was already in amood. I braced for a verbal offensive while remembering the promise I’d made myself that I would try harder. It was a new year, after all. I had to believe the Henri I’d met eight years ago was in there somewhere behind this feral beast always finding reasons to snap. I just had to reach him.

I tried to placate. “I’m not being dramatic, I’m just surprised. They’reyourfriends, not mine. It’s been months since you’ve brought me along on one of your after-work things.”

Almost all of Henri’s friends were his co-workers at the firm, finance bros with their model girlfriends I had nothing in common with. My ability to make dive bar small talk never worked with his people. After a few years of begging for scraps of conversation from Henri’s crowd, I’d given up. I’d merely smiled and nodded, sticking to the sidelines. Eventually, Henri had stopped insisting I join him, other than when absolutely necessary. Like tonight, apparently.

“And whose fault is that? The last time I brought you, you just sat there like a statue making people uncomfortable. Everyone else’s girlfriend can drink and laugh and have fun, but mine has to be the fucking wet blanket.”

I took a deep breath and looked at Henri across the room. Back to me, he removed his undershirt. I stared at the phoenix rising between his shoulder blades and thought again of how surprising it was that my polished, fussy boyfriend had a tattoo. No one would ever guess. No one would ever guess a lot of things about Henri.

Still, I had loved him for a long time. It had been almost a decade since he’d found me in Dorchester, working at some shithole-in-the-wall. And he loved me, based on his willingness to put up with how different I was from all his friends’ wives and girlfriends.

But some days took more effort than others.

“You’re really being insane right now, Sadie,” he complained as he continued to undress. “You can’t have it both ways—you can’t be embarrassing when we go out together and then get mad when I don’t want to be with you in front of my friends. I let you stay home most nights because you seem to like it that way. But people are aware we live together, so it’d be weird if you didn’t come with me tonight, since it’s a holiday. You can’t keep expecting me to make excuses for you. I really hope you can just…try a little.”

Was he right? Was I being crazy? Should I have tried harder with his friends? It seemed like he’d been happy when I’d stopped going out, but now I wasn’t sure. Making him happy was like playing whack-a-mole. Every time I’d hit one, some other grievance would pop up to keep him pissed.

I sighed. “I’m sorry, Henri. It’s just that I’d planned something special for us at home.” I thought of the elaborate meal I’d ordered and the bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge. I’d had a mental image of a romantic dinner, kissing at midnight. Henri coming home and informing me we were going to a bar to celebrate with his work friends hadn’t been part of the picture.

He seemed to relent a little. “Look, darling, at least I’m inviting you along this time. That earns me boyfriend points, right? Even if you are the most awkward, least talkative girlfriend on the planet, I’m not asking you to stay home.”

I didn’t think he meant it when he said things like that. He had a stressful job and reminded me all the time that he needed to be “on” at work all day, so I had to accept his rougher edges at home. Lately, I’d been the recipient ofa lotof rough edges. I missed the softer moments we used to share. The kinder words. There’d been so few of them lately, and every attempt I’d made to please Henri had seemed less effective and more desperate than the last.

CHAPTER

Five

December 21, 2014

Signs of theholidays were popping up all over the city, in the usual way of sunglasses-wearing Santas and decorated palm trees. I’d been back almost a year and California was finally feeling like home again.