A Cold Piece of Work by Curtis Bunn

rotation he negotiated before Michele. Prior to their unlikely reconnection, Solomon went round and round between them, a carousel of meaningless and misleading sex.
    But he needed the women for a number of reasons, reasons he did not truly contemplate until those days waiting to have lunch with Michele. The more Texas margaritas he consumed, the more honest he was with himself.
    So, Solomon sipped cocktails and spewed truths. He confessed to himself that he juggled women because he did not like being alone—a hard reality for someone who claimed he did not care much for people; that despite the confidence he showed, there was an underlying insecurity that needed women to validate his worth; that he loved sexually pleasing women and being pleased, but only physically—not for an emotional charge because he could not put his emotions in a position to be influenced by women.
    Above all, he surmised that there was something wrong with all that, something wrong with him .
    By the fourth drink, he figured it out:
    He did not have a soul.
    That revelation saddened him, for a moment. He asked himself: Where did it go? How did it go? His spirits quickly changed when the next revelation arrived: Regaining Michele’s love would be tantamount to regaining his soul.
    And so his commitment was redoubled. If it were not 1:37 a.m., he would have called Michele right then. But consideringthe impact the liquor had on his mind, it was a good thing that he got to sleep it off and start fresh the next day.
    If he had called, Michele would have answered. Unlike Solomon, who could not find his friend Ray to be a sounding board, Michele unloaded all her conflicting emotions on Sonya, who was a willing listener.
    â€œSo you think I should go out with him?” Michele asked Sonya. “Forget all about what he did to me?”
    â€œIn a word, ‘yes,’” she answered. “What are you proving by going against your heart? You’ve been basically miserable for eight years. If you didn’t have Gerald, you’d be crazy—and driving me crazy.
    â€œHere’s a man who is open about making a mistake and apologizing for it. Most guys won’t even apologize for not opening the door for you. From what you have told me, Solomon has been almost overly apologetic.
    â€œSo I say, again, give him a chance. Because he did something years ago doesn’t mean he’ll do it again—or that you shouldn’t forgive him. If you let your son go out with him, then why not you?”
    Her cousin made perfect sense, but Michele learned something about herself: She was not a chance-taker.
    â€œHonestly, the easy thing for me to do is to go on with my life,” she said. “There’s no risk in that—I know what that’s like.”
    â€œWell, you can—and will—do what you want,” Sonya said. “But to go on with your life when you’re not happy with it…well, that doesn’t show me a lot. Here’s my last point and I’m done with it: There’s something called risk-reward. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Sometimes, that’s what it comes down to in life. To me, there’s something exciting about that. And whenever we can throw excitement into our lives, how can that be bad?”
    Sonya then got up, hugged her cousin and left Michele in her home to deal with her dilemma. She was in a struggle with twosides of herself, and they were at a stalemate. When she finally pulled herself off the couch near 2 a.m., she stopped by Gerald’s room to look in on him.
    She stood in the doorway and watched him sleep soundly. Her existence was about providing and protecting Gerald. Michele threw herself into him partly so she would not have to deal with her loneliness.
    The reality was that no man before or after Solomon even dented her sensibilities. She dated because it was, basically, a necessary evil. It had become so droll until it eventually