Free Until Tomorrow by Robin Jones Gunn Page A

immediately gave in
    â€œStop squeezing my knee,” she said with a giggle as she swatted at Todd.
    How did Todd know her knee was so sensitive? I didn’t know that .
    He exited as the train swayed back and forth. “Katie, I mean it about the flirting stuff you said this morning,” Christy continued. She didn’t feel she had been able to say everything she wanted to earlier, since they had been talking in code in front of Todd. “That really upset me, and I don’t want us to communicate like that on this trip.”
    â€œFine,” Katie said. “What else do you want to say to me before Todd comes back? Because if you don’t have anything else to yell at me about, I have something I think I should mention to you.”
    â€œI’m not yelling at you, Katie.”
    â€œOkay, is there anything else you want not to yell at me about?”
    â€œNo.”
    The waiter arrived with their bottles of mineral water and the bill on a small tray.
    â€œI’ve got it,” Christy said, pulling some money from her pocket and placing it on the tray. He gave her some change, and she thanked him in Italian.
    â€œI’ll pay for something next time,” Katie said. “Now, do you want to hear my observation?”
    â€œYes.” Christy meant it. She really did appreciate Katie’s insights. She always had. But she didn’t always like them when she first heard them.
    Katie leaned forward. “Okay. First, I should tell you thatTodd and I got into a big discussion on the plane. We talked about how he and I are more the outdoorsy type. We were talking about camping, and he said he wasn’t sure you would want to do much roughing it on this trip. I told him he didn’t have to worry, that you could handle anything we threw at you.”
    â€œGuess I proved you both wrong, didn’t I?”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Katie said. “Todd and I talked about it yesterday while we were washing our clothes and you were in the bathtub.”
    â€œYou and Todd talked about me again?”
    Katie swished the air in front of Christy with her hand as if to brush away any misunderstandings Christy might be formulating. “I told him we should be sensitive to you and try not to do anything that would push you over the edge. He said you were probably still stressed from school and working at the orphanage and everything. We both know it’s been a difficult term for you.”
    â€œWell, you know what? I don’t know if I appreciate your analyzing me whenever I’m not around.”
    â€œIt was no big deal, Christy. I think you should be glad that Todd feels comfortable enough to talk with me about you.”
    Christy wasn’t sure she agreed with that. She sipped her bubbly water and reluctantly listened as Katie continued.
    â€œCan I just say that I think you have way too many expectations of yourself, of me, and of Todd for this trip? Either that, or you’re living too much in the past.”
    â€œAnd what is that supposed to mean?”
    â€œIf you think about it, Christy, you could be having some kind of weird flashbacks to our trip to England, but this is nothing like that trip.”
    â€œYou’re right. It isn’t.” Christy felt certain this trip couldn’t be compared in any way to that one. In England they werewith a group on a short-term missions project. At the beginning of the trip, Christy had been dating Todd’s best friend, Doug, because Todd was long gone from her life. Or so she thought at the time. Christy had ended up seeing that she and Doug were incompatible but how perfect her friend Tracy was for him. Christy broke up with Doug during the first week of the trip, and now, a year and a half later, Doug and Tracy were married.
    â€œI don’t see how the two trips compare at all,” Christy said.
    â€œThat’s my point exactly,” Katie said. “This is a completely