It would not.â
âWhy not?â
Michael returned to his armchair before composing his answer. âOkay, first of all, nakedâmy flabby white ass on a bicycle seat. Second of all, pub crawlâ drunk on a bicycle, right? Naked and drunk on a bicycle. Tell me when we get to the fun part. Iâd kill myself, honey. In a hot minute. Iâd die an ignominious death.â
Ben smiled. âI bet Shawna will do it.â
âOh, well, thereâs a safe enough bet. Sheâd do that in the city .â
âYou sound like a prissy old uncle.â
True enough, thought Michael. He had known Shawna since she was a baby. He had become a sort of coparent, in fact, when his old friend Mary Ann made a single dad out of his old friend Brian. He and Brian had doted and fussed and fretted over that childâand later the teenagerâto such a degree that the fretting had never stopped. Ben regarded Shawna simply as a hip woman less than ten years his junior. The thought of her naked on a bicycle didnât make him nervous in the least.
âAs I recall,â Ben added, âyou used to get naked all the time.â
âWhen?â
âYou know . . . at the nude beach. Devilâs Slide. With Mona. You told me so.â
âThat was before you were born . . . practically.â Michael felt a pang at the mention of his old roommate. Cynical, loyal Mona, with her rusty Brillo Pad hair and thrift shop finery. Mona who took no shit and took no prisoners. Sheâd been gone for a dozen years, her ashes scattered on a Cotswold hillside, but she was right there in the room with him, breathing taunts in his ear, wondering how heâd turned out to be such a scaredy-catâ such a fucking pussyâ in his twilight years.
âIt was Mona who got naked at the beach,â he said, correcting Ben. âI wanted a tan line.â
âWhat about three years ago in Tulum?â
âWhat about it?â
âYou got naked then.â
âThat was around the pool.â
Ben grinned. âSo a body of water is required for your nakedness?â
âAn absence of family is required, Ben. Shawna is family. It feels . . . borderline somehow.â
âWeâll have our tent. Weâll have privacy. Anyway, Shawna has friends in at least three other camps. Weâll probably never see her.â
Michael looked down at the Kindle aflame in his hands, considering its twisted tale and the bright young woman who had somehow brought it to life.
It made him proud and nervous at the same time.
I âve been thinking,â said Ben, later that night in bed.
Michaelâs gut clenched. âIâve been thinkingâ was often the preamble to change of some sort, and Michael didnât much care for change. He had his life the way he wanted it, more or less. He was happily married; he was still surviving the plague that had wiped out half the people from his past; hell, he was still surviving the meds that had given him a future. He didnât want that messed with. At all.
âDonât leave me,â he said, hoping that his darkest fear could convincingly masquerade as total flippancy.
Ben chuckled, pulling him closer. âThis bed really sucks.â
âWhat do you mean? Itâs a Tempur-Pedic.â
âI know what it is, and I know how much we paid for it, but itâs just not cutting it, honey.â
Thank you, Jesus. Itâs the bed. Itâs not me.
âWhatâs the matter with it?â Michael asked. âItâs memory foam. Itâs comfy as all get-out. It molds to your body.â
âIt molds to your body.â
Michael still didnât get it. âAnd yours too, right?â
âYeah, but . . . when people cuddle all night the way we do . . . and when one of them isâno offenseâheavier than the other . . . it forms, you know, a trench that the other one sort of
Hundreds of Years to Reform a Rake