Chapter Three

Fiona was giddy as she hung up the phone and the smile refused to leave her face even as her husband rolled his eyes at her.

 

“He’s not going to come, you know,” he said. He put his arms around his wife and kissed the top of her head. “He’s going to come up with some excuse just like he always does.”

 

She refused to be put out.

 

“I know,” she said. “At least, I’m trying.”

 

He moved back a little and faked being hurt.

 

“Are you saying I’m not trying?”

 

Fiona poked her husband in the chest and screwed her face up at him.

 

“Who made all the phone calls to his house? Hm? Who has wheedled and coddled him and begged and threatened him? Yeah, me, that’s who.”

 

Todd loved it when she was feisty and stuck his tongue out at her. Then, his mood shifted. She was right. Though she was teasing him there was truth in her words. She had been the one that had done everything while he sat around and told her that it was hopeless. He felt like a bad friend.

 

But, damn it, Craig had been like this ever since they’d met in college. Not shy, not really, just not social. He always had some excuse not to do something, not to go somewhere. Most of the others had given up on him but Todd had found something likeable in the man and had stayed his friend for all these years. It was exhausting, though.

 

He kissed his wife on the head again, this time more tenderly, and breathed in her scent. What would he do without her? He couldn’t imagine living in the huge house Craig lived in, all alone with no one but the ghost of his over-protective and over-bearing father, the specter of a mother he couldn’t remember, and the constant reminder of what his parents had accomplished.

 

It made him pity his friend.

Author's Note

I'm not certain about this one, please let me know if I could cut this out completely without losing anything. I thought I needed it in order to show the relationship between Craig and his father and Craig and his two friends but I don't like that, in order to do that, I had to switch points of view.