I would never admit it, but I liked this playful version of Theo. He was always so forbidding in New York. Like there was a wall between him and everyone else. It wasn’t that he didn’t do his job well. He was relentless and brilliant. But he was always disconnected from everything. Like he excelled not because he cared, but because he didn’t know to do anything other than to win. He’d even been a good boss in some ways. But he wasn’t warm. The only times I ever saw some softness in him was when dealing with Cecilia and Zoe.

“Was going to the Olympics something you decided?” I heard myself ask. I’d wondered about that since I started working for him. He’d won two medals, one bronze and one silver, which I’d expected to see hanging in a frame in his office or in his house. But they were nowhere to be found in either place. When I’d asked Natasha about it, she told me he kept them in the box he got them in, in a drawer in his house. All those years of work to not even display his achievements. It seemed so odd to me. Still, I didn’t actually expect him to answer.

I couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but I knew his “deep thoughts” face. His eyebrows got really flat and he’d gnaw on the inside of his bottom lip.

“I’m really good at swimming.” What a weird fucking answer.

“A lot of people are good swimmers, but they don’t make it to the Olympics.” I was pushing him, but he seemed to be into answering my questions.

“True, but my family had the money to train me to get to that level.” He stopped talking as he got us through a particularly busy intersection and took a turn onto a street that looked residential.

“I like this neighborhood,” he told me as we drove through a series of beautiful homes with big yards and lots of green grass. One blue Craftsman cottage with green shutters caught my attention.

“I could live there.” I pointed to it, figuring we were done talking about his Olympic days. He turned his head slightly to look at it and grunted. “Looks like a place a person could be happy to come home to after a long day.” I didn’t know why I said that, but he seemed to understand what I meant.