Page 77 of Full Contact

“Should I bring a book?”

“The librarian picks the books. She knows the group.”

Callahan nodded. “Can I find out what it is beforehand? I’d like to read it once first.”

Leah looked up from her tablet. “I’ll ask her for the title.”

“Thanks.”

As Callahan headed on down the hall, Leah turned toward me. “Have you seen Holloway?”

“Weight room,” I said.

She was already walking. I zipped my one roll of free tape into my bag and took the stairs to the garage.

***

On Thursday I got home from practice, did an hour on the bike in the building gym, and headed upstairs in time to give Peaches her gel at seven. She tolerated it, collected her salmon treat from the counter, and lay in the window bed with her back to me.

I was pulling my practice shirt over my head in the bedroom when my phone buzzed on the dresser.

Mark: Downstairs.

Trier: Come up.

I put on a clean T-shirt and unlocked the door. Down the hall, I heard the elevator chime, then the doors opening and footsteps on the carpet.

I opened the door. Mark was holding a grocery bag against his chest with both arms. A leek stuck out of the top beside a loaf of bread, and his work bag hung off one shoulder, dragging his coat sideways.

“Hi,” he said.

“You could—“

The grocery bag started sliding down the front of his coat. I took it from him before the bread went with it.

“What are we making?”

“Potato-leek soup.” He set his work bag on the couch. “It’s quick, and it’s the one thing Felix taught me that he didn’t have to teach me twice.”

“Sounds good.”

“It sounded good at the store.” He took his coat off and hung it over the back of a chair. “I had a meeting run an hour long, and then a call where a man read me his own email. Somewhere between the produce section and your lobby, I stopped wanting to chop anything.”

I looked in the bag: potatoes, the leek, a carton of stock, and a small container of cream.

“These will keep,” I said.

I put the potatoes in the pantry, the leek and cream in the refrigerator, and the bread on the counter. Then I opened the drawer beside the refrigerator and took out the takeout menus.

“Thai?” I asked.

“Sure.” Mark sat at the counter, and I passed him the menu, though neither of us needed it.

“The red curry for you,” he said. “Extra basil, the way you had it last time.”

“Green for you.”

“Correct.”