Page 22 of Sunny Undone

“Sounds like something I did last night with Steffi,” Ridge mutters, and I chuckle again.

Normally, I’d pull out some equally perky response, but given there’s a lady in the car, I keep my mouth shut.

Apart from the whole Uranus thing, which makes me chuckle all over again.

“You have a girlfriend?” Della asks, and it’s hard to miss the surprise in her tone.

Ridge firmly shakes his head. “God, no. Just a club girl I fuck sometimes.”

Della’s mouth opens, then closes. She takes a breath, like she’s about to say something to Ridge, so I scramble for anything to distract her with. Then, I remember her boxing comment I was going to come back to. “You don’t think Ali was the greatest boxer of all time?”

Della’s eyes narrow in Ridge’s direction, then she sighs and shakes her head. “Statistically, no. Objectively, no. Was he charismatic? Yes. Is heavyweight seen as the sexier weight class? Sure. Did he have a higher percentage win rate? Sort of. Sugar Ray Robinson had one hundred and twenty-nine wins and one loss by 1951. He had over ninety consecutive wins. Ali only fought sixty-one fights in total.”

I glance at Ridge, hoping he has some knowledgeable comeback.

Instead, he says, “How does she know all this shit?”

“My great-grandfather was a boxer, ran a gym,” Della says. “I used to watch old fight footage with him. He’d get irritated by the myth that Ali invented rope-a-dope when all he did was give it a legendary moment.”

“How old is your great-grandfather?”

“We celebrated his hundredth birthday last year,” Della says. “He lives in a home, can’t really tell you anything that happened in the last forty years, but ask him why it’s believed that Sugar Ray Robinson once threw the most perfect punch, kinetically speaking, and he’ll talk your ear off.”

Ridge glances over his shoulder. “You’re clearly a family full of characters.”

Della finally smiles. “My great-grandfather would say it skipped my father. He says he’s duller than beige paint.”

“I like your great-grandfather,” I say.

“Me too,” Della says wistfully, before leaning back into her seat. “But he was also the one who suggested each generation should be more successful than the last, and that’s a pretty impossible bar to reach.”

Silence settles for a mile. The truck rattles over the washboard road. Spanish moss flashes between trees as we finally reach the pavement.

Della’s phone rings, and she rummages in her bag to answer it. “Dean Whitaker,” she says, almost breathlessly. There’s a pause, and then: “No, no, I’m out doing field work.”

She tucks her phone beneath her ear so she can rummage in her bag and grab the notebook she’s been using as Whitaker talks. I can’t hear what he’s saying, just the slightly tinny tone of someone in the distance.

“What?” she says, her whole face brightening. “That’s incredible.” She makes a couple of notes. “No, I understand completely…And if we do get it, what financial year would that commence in?”

It’s hard to keep my eyes on the road, because a happy Della is quite a beautiful thing. The lines of worry temporarily disappear from her face. Even the vibration of my phone in my chest pocket can’t dull it. Mom has taken so many days from me, but she isn’t having this one.

When I glance ahead, I see I’ve gotten a little close to the car in front of us, and my foot has to be a little heavy on the brake.

“You want to watch what you’re doing there, buddy?” Ridge asks.

I raise my finger and flip him the bird.

“No, I’d be happy to come talk to you when you know a little more,” Della says from the back. There’s a pink flush to her cheeks, and it’s hard to remember just how terrified she looked when I climbed back into my truck. “Thanks for letting me know.”

She ends the call, places her phone on her lap, and gives a little jiggle of a dance on the back seat.

“You good?” I ask.

“Oh…what? Yes. Sorry. It looks like someone might be making a significant donation to Calusa Gulf University and specifically to my department. It’ll fund so much research and buy more equipment.” She closes her eyes and lets her head flop against the seat of the truck. “What a wild couple of days,” she mutters. Then, her eyes pop wide open again. “Where are you taking us?”

“I’m taking you home, first, to get changed, and then we’re going to my clubhouse.”

“Wait. What? No. I need to go back to the lab with the few samples I have.”