Free From This Moment by Elizabeth Camden Page B

but his blond hair had darkened a bit since they’d seen each other last.
    When the three of them had been running the magazine, they had done so from the tiny apartment Clyde and Evelyn shared. There had been barely enough room for the three of them, and they’d knocked elbows as they wrote out addresses by hand. They didn’t even have a proper desk, and Evelyn set the typewriter on a sofa table, sitting on the floor as she typed up the articles written by him and Clyde.
    “Is Evelyn here?”
    Romulus grabbed Clyde’s elbow, turning him toward the door leading back into the hallway. This needed to be handled delicately. “She’s here, but now isn’t a good time. She’s in a bit of a mood.”
    They stepped into the relative privacy of the hallway. “Still?” Clyde said. “It seems she’s been in a mood for the past six years.”
    Romulus stiffened. He was allowed to tease Evelyn, but no one else could. “Watch it,” he murmured.
    Was there anything more awkward than being smack in the middle of a marital dispute? He and Clyde had become enduring friends within five minutes of meeting each other ten years ago. And when Clyde and Evelyn had announced their engagement, he had been overjoyed that his two best friends had found happiness together. Just because Evelyn had kickedClyde back out onto the streets didn’t mean Romulus intended to follow her example.
    Clyde held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. It’s a stressful time . . .”
    “What are you doing here? The last I heard you were living in New York.” That had been the deal when Clyde and Evelyn had split apart six years ago. Evelyn would live in Boston, and Clyde could live anywhere else in the entire world so long as he stayed entirely out of Boston.
    Clyde shifted nervously. “New York has just scuttled their plans for a subway. Again.”
    The wind left Romulus’s lungs in a mighty gust. Clyde was one of the lead engineers on the subway that was due to break ground in New York. He’d spent years working on an ambitious plan to tunnel through the bedrock beneath Manhattan, boring beneath historic city streets in a project even more complicated than the subway under construction in Boston.
    “I’ve spent the past two years paying draftsmen and surveyors out of my own pocket,” Clyde said. “I was sure to win the contract, but the date to break ground has been set back yet again. The financing has fallen through. I’m flat broke and can’t wait any longer.”
    “So what are you doing in Boston?” Romulus asked, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
    Humor lit Clyde’s suntanned face. “I don’t know if you noticed how ripped up the streets are outside. Rumor has it Boston is building a subway, and I need a job.”
    Romulus folded his arms across his chest. “About that little agreement you have with my cousin? About living anywhere in the world so long as you leave her in peace in Boston?”
    “I’ve spent the past two years and every dollar to my name designing an electrical grid that can power a subway,” Clydesaid. “I’m one of the few engineers in the country who knows how to do it, so I’m coming to Boston. Meet the lead electrical engineer for the Tremont link.”
    Romulus sighed. Unlike most major engineering projects, which were under the leadership of a single contractor, Boston had elected to award the contracts to twelve different engineers, each of whom would have responsibility for a unique segment of the subway.
    “Did you have to win the Tremont line?” Romulus grumbled. “It’s right outside our window.”
    “I’ll be underground most of the time, so Evelyn won’t even have to look at me if she doesn’t want.”
    Try as he might, Clyde couldn’t disguise the pain in his voice. For most of their marriage, Clyde and Evelyn had done little but hurt each other. There had been a couple years of bliss when the two of them had been so deliriously happy that they could light up any room they