Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 236

Chapter 236

Chapter 236

THEO

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The argument started because of Daniel.

It started, specifically, because Daniel had made a claim at the lunch table that was so wrong that I had no choice but to address it, which was that a Tyrannosaurus rex could beat a Spinosaurus in a fight, which showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the fossil record and also of basic size comparison and also of the fact that Spinosaurus was semi-aquatic and therefore had a significant environmental advantage in the right conditions.

“T-rex has the strongest bite of any land predator,” Daniel said. He said this with the confidence of someone who had seen one documentary and decided they were now an expert.

“Spinosaurus was longer,” I said. “By a lot. Almost fifteen meters. T-rex was twelve at most.”

“Length doesn’t matter if you can’t bite.”

“Spinosaurus had claws,” I said. “Long ones. For fishing. They would work fine on something that wasn’t a fish.”

“They lived in different times,” Sophie said, from across the table. She was eating her sandwich with the calm of someone who had decided she was going to provide accurate information and then let us do what we wanted with it. “T-rex was Cretaceous. Spinosaurus was earlier. They never actually met.”

Daniel and I both looked at her.

“That’s not the point,” Daniel said.

“The point is who would win,” I said.

“If they met,” Daniel said.

“Which they wouldn’t,” Sophie said. “Because of the time periods.’

“Sophie,” I said. “We know that. We’re doing a hypothetical.”

“Then say hypothetically,” she said, and took another bite of her sandwich.

This was a thing Sophie did, which was to be correct in a way that was also somehow beside the point, and which I had learned over months of friendship was just how she operated and there was no use being annoyed about it because she wasn’t doing it to be annoying. She was doing it because she thought being accurate was important, which I understood because I also thought being accurate was important, except that sometimes you had to let the hypothetical be hypothetical first.

“Hypothetically,” I said, turning back to Daniel.

“T-rex,” he said immediately.

“Spinosaurus,” I said. “Reach advantage, claw advantage, and if there’s any water nearby, complete environmental advantage.’

“T-rex would stay away from the water.”

“T-rex doesn’t get to choose the terrain in my hypothetical,” I said.

“It’s not your hypothetical, it’s both our hypothetical-

“I introduced the hypothetical-‘

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“You introduced it after I made my point-

“Because your point needed addressing-

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Sophie put down her sandwich. “Spinosaurus,” she said.

We both looked at her.

“I thought about it,” she said. “The reach is decisive.”

Daniel looked at his lunch. He had the expression of someone who had lost a vote and was deciding how to feel about it. “Fine,” he said. “But T-rex would still put up a fight.”

“Obviously,” I said. “I didn’t say T-rex wouldn’t fight. I said Spinosaurus would win.”

“There’s a difference,” Sophie said.

“There is,” I agreed.

Daniel picked up his juice. “What about Ankylosaurus versus Stegosaurus.”

This was a much more interesting question and we spent the rest of lunch on it, which was enough time to reach no conclusion because the variables were genuinely complex, which was the sign of a good hypothetical.

The afternoon was the kind that felt longer than it was.

Not bad long. Just the specific quality of an afternoon where you were aware of each part of it because you were waiting for the end of it, not because you wanted the day to be over but because the end of school meant the thing that came after school, which was pickup.

I had not said this to anyone.

I had not said it to Sophie, who would have asked follow-up questions in the specific way she asked things, which was directly and without leaving much room to deflect. I had not said it to Daniel, who would have understood but would have said something that made it into a bigger deal than I wanted it to be. I had not said it to Dad, who knew anyway because Dad had gotten better at knowing things without being told, which was useful most of the time and occasionally inconvenient.

I just knew that the end of school meant Cal would be there.

This had been true for three weeks now and it had become the kind of true that you stopped noticing as a specific fact and started knowing as a general condition, the way you knew that breakfast happened in the mornings and that your bed was where you

went when it was dark and late.

At three fifteen the bell went and I got my bag from my locker and did the zip up properly this time because Mrs. Adebayo had said something last week about how I kept the pencils from falling out if I remembered to zip it, and I had been remembering since then, and I went out to the pickup area with Sophie and Daniel.

Sophie’s mum was there first. Sophie did the specific goodbye she did, which was efficient and complete, one word to each of us and then she was done and gone, which was very Sophie.

Daniel’s dad was next. Daniel waved at me over his shoulder in the loose way he waved at things, like his hand was only partially committed to the action.

I stood in the pickup area and looked at the gate.

Cal was already there.

He was standing at the edge of the pickup area in the specific way he stood in places, which was with his back to nothing and a clear view of most of the space, which I had noticed early on and which I understood was about his job even though it looked like he was just standing there. He had seen me before I saw him, which was also usual. He raised his hand once, the small wave that was his version of a wave.

I went over.

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“Goud day?” he said.

“We settled the Spinosaurus versus T-rex debate,” I said.

“Who won?”

“Spinosaurus. Sophie agreed.”

“Two to one,” he said. “Decisive.”

“Daniel accepted it eventually.”

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