“She was going to F.I.T. the last time I saw you post about her. Did she stay in fashion?”
“She did. Now she’s hoping to build her own little empire.” His eyes found hers again. The whole world seemed to stop turning. “Care to talk about it over dinner?” He shifted his glance to the rumpled napkin in her hand. “Tell me that wasn’t your dinner.”
A blustery breath left her lips. “Pfft. No. Just a wedding snack.”
“Come on. I’ll take you for a real meal. So we can catch up.” He reached for her hand, but took only the very tips of her fingers. Yet another perfect example of their dynamic—he’d give Lela just enough to leave her hungry for more. “Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.”
Lela wanted to hate the excitement bubbling up inside her, but it was nice to have the attention, especially from Donovan. Especially out of the blue like this. They’d been so close at one time. She’d never thought she’d see him again, let alone share a meal. “I have no plans. I’d love to go.”
The crowd in the park began to clap. Donovan and Lela turned and joined in as the bride and groom kissed, then scooped up the little girl into their arms.
“I don’t believe in happy endings, but that looks like a pretty happy beginning.” Donovan’s comment came as no surprise. He’d taken his dismissiveness of love to near-academic levels when they were in college. Apparently some things never changed.
“I see you haven’t lost your sunny disposition.”
“Never.” He delivered one of his penetrating glances. “You, Lela, seem exactly the same.”
She choked back a sigh. Was she supposed to be radically different? Was she supposed to have let life, love, and divorce change her? Maybe. Probably. “Thanks. I guess.”
“I mean, way less eyeliner. Obviously.”
“What can I say? My eyelids were getting droopy.” Lela laughed. He wasn’t wrong about that. “Where should we eat? You’re the visitor. I get to eat in the city all the time.”
“John’s?”
Lela and Donovan had frequented the Bleecker Street location of John’s Pizza countless times when they were in college. Even though they didn’t sell slices, it was the best pie in the city and not far from campus. But now there was another, closer option in midtown and Lela wanted to keep herself wedged in the here-and-now. “We can walk to the Times Square location.”
“Not quite the original, but I’m game if the pizza is just as good.”
“It is. The bonus is there’s usually less of a line.”
He bounced his expressive eyebrows. “I’ve always liked the way you think.”
Lela’s traitorous cheeks flamed, but it was nice to feel alive. She’d been mostly numb for the last two months.
They walked down the promenade on the north side of the park and if Lela hadn’t been wearing a dress and a pair of shoes that cost several hundred dollars, she would’ve sworn they were back in college. There was something so familiar about strolling along with him again, striking out on an adventure. Of course, Donovan was dressed quite differently now, too. Gone were his ripped jeans, dingy white Converse high tops, and distinctly untidy hair. He also hadn’t come to scoop her up on his mint green Vespa, the sort of scooter that begs to be stolen in NYC, although Donovan managed to zip around the city for years with nary a problem. No, today he was wearing a jacket that cost more than her mortgage, his hair was nearly respectable, and this little jaunt was on foot.
But he was still just as mesmerizing, more than twenty years later.
Chapter Two
I’ll be damned.Lela still wandered into Donovan’s thoughts every now and then, but today, she’d wandered into his life. In a city filled with millions of people, they ran into each other at Bryant Park during the wedding of strangers? How did that even happen?
John’s pizza hummed around them, a cacophony of chatter in the echo-prone restaurant, which had once been a church. A heartbeat away from the chaos of Times Square and surrounded by off-Broadway theaters, it was an eclectic space, with a fresco ceiling and brick pizza ovens crammed into the corners. “So. The wedding today,” Donovan said. “Is this still a normal thing for you? Because it seems a little weird given recent events in your life.”
Lela wiped her mouth with a napkin. Even in the room’s dim lighting, her deep blue eyes were as bright as ever. He had a lifetime of memories of looking into them, late at night when they were in her dorm or his apartment. He and Lela used to sit up for hours listening to music and talking about everything. She’d always been so earnest, and her eyes had always reflected it. “Not really. I sort of OD’d on it for a while there. I started my career in makeup with bridal work. Itispossible to get sick of weddings.”
Lela had been an art history major when he first met her, but after he graduated, she dropped out of NYU and went to beauty school in the Bronx. In the days before the Internet, he’d had to hear about it through friends. He hadn’t entirely understood the shift at the time, and a huge part of him had wanted to call her and ask what the hell she was doing, but it clearly worked out for her, so it was best that he’d kept his mouth shut.
Plus, he’d also had his own stuff going on. He was married to Genevieve just one month after commencement, then their daughter arrived six months later. He was trying to start his consulting business. Life was crazy, and not always in a good way. “Now you’re doing more high fashion work, right?”
She smiled sweetly and he instantly knew he was out of the loop. The question was how far. “I did. For a while. But doing runway and magazine shoots can be brutal. It’s not always the healthiest environment. I mostly have individual clients now. Celebrity chefs. Actors. A few pop stars. Internet influencers. Stuff like that.”
“Anyone I know?” He took a swig of his beer and grabbed another slice of pizza.
“My best client is Tammera Beyer. She’s on the Cook It! channel. She was my hair stylist for a long time while she was trying to break into TV. She’s even better with food than she is with hair, and she was great at that.”
“I’ve heard of her. Haven’t seen her show, though.”
