"I'm not upset." He picked up his water and drank. "I'm bummed, but I'm not upset. You can't force this stuff, right? I spent two years trying to force it with my college girlfriend and we ended up in couples therapy at twenty-four. Twenty-four, Charlie. The therapist was older than us by, like, ten years."
She laughed.
"You're a good guy," she said. "You're such a good guy, and I wanted to try and?—”
"Please don't say you wanted to try. That's the saddest sentence in the English language." He leaned back in hischair. "Look. I'd rather be your friend than your experiment in moving on. And let’s face it, I can’t compete with a good-looking billionaire.” He raised his water glass. "To friendship. And to Mason, who would beat Dominic Weston at chess in four moves."
She clinked her glass against his, grinning.
They finished dinner and he walked her to her car. The night was warm, the sidewalk busy with Friday foot traffic: families, couples, a group of teenagers arguing about something on someone's phone. Eric stopped at her car door and put his hands in his pockets.
"Friends?" he said.
"Friends."
He nodded. Didn't try to hug her, didn't lean in, didn't make it awkward. He just said, "See you Monday," and walked away, hands still in his pockets, whistling something she couldn't identify.
She sat in her car. The guilt sat with her, heavy in her lap. Eric deserved better than a woman who'd spent their entire date thinking about someone else. He deserved someone who'd look at him and feel the bonfire.
Back at her apartment, it was dark. She kicked off her shoes, dropped her keys on the kitchen counter, and headed to her bedroom, where she stared at the ceiling crack that ran from the window to the light fixture.
She was angry. At Dominic, for existing, for showing up every Thursday, for wiping soup off her face with a tenderness that made her want to scream. At herself, for letting him. For looking forward to Thursdays. For comparing Eric's easy warmth to Dominic's careful, agonizing attention and finding Eric's wanting, even though Eric was the one who made sense, the one who was safe, the one who hadn't shattered her in front of the whole world.
Charlotte was angry because she still belonged to Dominic. After everything. She was still his.
CHAPTER 14
CHARLOTTE
The next Thursday, Charlotte arrived before Dominic for once, arranging her papers, which was mostly about having something to do with her hands. The motivational cat stared at her from the wall. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. She wanted to rip it down.
He walked in at four on the dot. Thermos. Folder. Charcoal blazer over a white shirt, no tie. Handsome as sin. Still, he looked tired: faint circles under his eyes, a tightness in his jaw that she recognized from the weeks before their wedding, when the Weston machine had been running at full speed and he'd been caught inside it.
But then he saw her, and something shifted. A softening. The tension in his face relaxing itself into an expression that was glad. Like she was the best part of his day and he couldn't help showing it.
She abruptly looked down at her papers and shuffled them.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
He sat and opened his folder. "The Mercer lighting upgrade is approved. I've got the contractor bid here — they can install the fixtures in the courtyard by?—"
"I went on a date," she blurted out.
She hadn't meant to say it. The words just left her mouth, propelled by the anger she'd been carrying since Friday, since the diner, since his thumb on her chin. Since he’d entered the room and looked at her the way she had once looked at him, and it affected her.
Dominic's hand stopped turning the page. He didn't look up. A long, controlled pause, a pause that cost effort.
"With Eric Cho," she added. "The science teacher."
"I know who Eric Cho is."
"He's a good man. He's kind, he listens when I talk, and he doesn't make me feel like I'm—" She faltered. Where was she going with this? What was she doing?
"Like you're what?" His voice was low. He still hadn't looked up. His hand was flat on the page, pressing down.
"Like I'm a project."
