* * * *
Michael found him there half an hour later.
“Your mom’s serving dessert and coffee. You ready?”
Paul dug his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight, finding his shoulders tense and sore from maintaining one position so long. The awareness of time passing had penetrated his abstraction, but he couldn’t have said what he was thinking of all that time.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Turning, he was stopped by Michael’s hand on his arm. “Wait a minute.”
“Why? Don’t want to miss dessert, do you?”
“There’s time. And if you go in there now, looking like this, you’ll make everybody think it’s Halloween instead of Thanksgiving.”
“Thanks.”
Michael nodded, as if the word hadn’t been loaded with sarcasm. “I thought Bette didn’t look too happy when she came in, but you look a whole lot worse. What happened, Paul?”
He dismissed the possibility of ignoring the question as quickly as it occurred to him. They’d been friends too long. But he did try to laugh. “You know how it is. Just like you said while we were painting your place. Women want what you don’t have to give—forever. They want commitment and families and houses, and the whole schmeer.”
“And you think you don’t want the same thing?”
“I know I don’t want the same thing.”
“Ah.”
“There you go with that damned ‘ah’ again. What the hell does it mean?”
Michael gave him a long, considering look he found even more discomfiting than usual. “It means you already are committed to Bette.”
“The hell I am.”
“The hell of it is, you are. It might scare you, but be honest with yourself. Bette’s the only woman you’ve ever made the commitment of pursuing. You told me yourself, something about her ‘just clicked.’ You may not have known it then, and you may not like it now, but it looks to me as if your heart’s been committed pretty much right from the start.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Maybe not. But you know what I’m talking about.”
Chapter Eleven