Saving Mr. Bell

Chapter Nine

Rudolf

I’d ended up sorting out lunch and dinner, spending time in the cabin’s kitchen surprisingly relaxing. Not as relaxing as taking an axe to a tree or a log, but it ran a close second. I might have playfully teased Arlo about it, but it had surprised me to find I had an aptitude for it despite never having held one before. Perhaps if I looked into my family tree, I’d discover my great-great-grandfather used to be a lumberjack.

Arlo’s initial reaction to me demanding to have a go was mild compared to what would have happened back home if I’d tried to do any manual labor. Your hands, Rudolf, think of your hands. Arlo had been correct about them being insured for a ridiculous amount of money. Not me . My hands. Like they were two independent entities capable of existing separately from the other.

I’d pooh-poohed Arlo’s idea of playing a game after dinner, choosing to stand at the window and watch the snow come down instead. We really weren’t getting out of here anytime soon. It only took ten minutes of staring at an endless sea of white before it lost its allure. And without a TV, there wasn’t much else to do in the cabin. “Fine,” I said, with as much exasperation as I could muster. “I’ll play a game. But I get to choose which one. I’m not playing bridge with you.”

Arlo raised his head from the book he’d been reading with a frown. “I don’t know how to play bridge.”

I went into the adjoining room, the piano mocking me as I walked past without offering it so much as a glance. Yeah, and it could keep mocking me because I wasn’t touching it. Even its existence made me want to grab the axe and chop something. Preferably, the piano itself.

Arlo appeared in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb in a pose of studied casualness with his arms crossed. “Go on, then. What are we playing?”

I bypassed the billiard table and went to the shelf of games at the back, running my finger along them as I discounted them. “Monopoly, no. Takes too long. Buckaroo, no. I’m not six. Trivial Pursuit, no. Too intellectual, and I’m shit at any category other than music.” I frowned at a game whose name I not only didn’t recognize but couldn’t pronounce. “Too Austrian.” I paused on the next one. “I found one for you.”

“What?”

I held it up with a grin. “Bingo. I bet that gets your heart racing.”

“Six year age difference,” Arlo said with wry amusement. “That’s all.”

I ran my finger over a few more boxes, none of them taking my fancy. With the games on the shelf all discounted, I moved on to the ones in the cupboard. “We need something a bit more physical.”

“Do we?”

“I do.”

“Like what?”

I had a feeling if I didn’t choose something soon, Arlo would return to his book and leave me to my own devices. I grabbed a pack of cards. “Poker.”

After an initial moment of surprise, Arlo dutifully followed me over to the table in the corner. “Not what I’d call physical.”

We sat opposite each other, Arlo raising an eyebrow as I tipped the cards out onto the table and treated them to a deliberately showy shuffle. “I had an ex who was a croupier,” I explained.

He smirked. “And that’s what you spent your time together doing?”

“Amongst other things.” It would have been a perfect lead-in to bring up the subject of his husband again, but he’d clammed up to such a degree this morning, I didn’t want to risk a return of that same tension. Not when we’d been getting on so well. “He taught me a few things. I taught him a few things.”

“It sounds as if you liked him. What happened?”

I looked away from Arlo’s all-seeing gaze, concentrating on the cards. “He was in Monaco. I was… everywhere else. By the time I returned to Monaco, he’d grown bored of waiting and moved on. I couldn’t say I blamed him.”

“But you wonder what could have been?”

I shrugged. “It was a while back. I don’t lie awake at night thinking about him, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“If he’d been the one, he would have waited for you,” Arlo said softly.

“The one,” I scoffed. “Don’t tell me you believe in that stuff?”

“You don’t?”

“Not really.” I didn’t pick Arlo up on avoiding answering by turning it into a question. Cards thoroughly shuffled, I sat back in my chair, keeping my gaze trained on him so I could see his reaction. “By the way, we’re playing strip poker, just to make things a bit more interesting.”

Arlo didn’t disappoint, rocking back in his chair like I’d struck him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“No? Why not? Because you’re married?” Good one, Rudolf! Your plan not to mention it lasted 3.8 seconds before you put your foot in it.

“Nothing to do with that.”

“You are still married, though?” While his fidgeting said he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the line of questioning, he at least was staying put, which was a vast improvement on this morning.

“Legally.”

“Do you think you’ll get back together?”

“No.”

A definitive answer without a pause that only made me more curious.

“I’m going to keep asking until you tell me to zip it.”

Arlo let out a sigh. “You’re looking for a story where there isn’t one.”

“Well, you see,” I said. “I once knew this documentary maker, so I learned from the best. He made me talk about my poor, dead mother, and everything.” Arlo’s wince made me feel guilty when that conversation had happened off-camera and had involved discussing Arlo’s similar experiences, not just mine. “If it’s not a story, then just tell me. It’s your own fault for borrowing me. Had you not brought me here, I wouldn’t be able to ask annoying questions, would I? Who do you think I’m going to tell?”

“It wouldn’t matter if you told someone.” I stared at him until he cracked. “Fine. Bruno and I mistook lust for love in the worst possible place to do that.”

“Vegas?”

Arlo nodded. “We tried to make a go of it. But it didn’t take long to realize that beyond wanting to do each other, we had nothing in common.”

“I’m sure there are successful marriages built on less.”

Arlo laughed. “Maybe... if the lust doesn’t wear off, but for us, it did, and then we found ourselves with nothing but awkward silences and a desire to avoid each other.”

“Ouch!”

“Yeah.”

“So, it was a mutual decision?”

Arlo’s lips quirked in a way that told me that despite his protestations to the contrary, there was more to the story. “I found him in bed with his costar.”

“Double ouch.”

“And the worst of it,” Arlo admitted, “was that I’d found my husband in bed with another man, and I didn’t really care.” He dropped his gaze to the table, his hair falling over his brow. “So yeah, it’s safe to say that getting married was not one of my better decisions, and that’s putting it mildly.”

“You don’t know if you don’t try.” As an attempt to make him feel better, it was weak.

“Trying is dating and then living with them, not immediately putting a ring on it.”

“Alright, Beyonce.” At least that got a smile. “So…” I announced with an eyebrow wiggle. “Strip poker! We’ve established that your not-husband won’t care, so what’s your issue?”

“I don’t really have to spell that out, do I, Rudolf?”

“You’re worried that one glimpse of my naked chest will have you overcome with lust.”

“No.”

“Well, then.” I stretched my legs out in front of me, nudging Arlo’s shoe with my bare toes. “You’ve got an advantage over me.” I dropped my gaze, doing a quick inventory of how many items I wore, and realizing that perhaps sweatpants and a T-shirt weren’t the best starting position for a game of strip poker. “Thank God, I’m wearing underwear.”