Page 9 of Wreckage and Rain

Then pleasure, real and immediate. The look he gives me when I walk into the kitchen. For half a second, it hurts worse than the candle because it means that part of him is still there.

Then the room catches up with him.

The table. The wine. The woman across from him.

His wife standing beside them.

He rises. “Summer.”

The text he sent me an hour ago tries to exist in the room with us.

Still at the office. Grinding through it. Eat without me.

It doesn’t survive the candle.

“Hi.” My voice comes out bright and warm, the one I could perform in my sleep. “I got lost in my book and looked up and the whole afternoon was gone. I started craving their risotto. I had no idea you were here.”

“Yeah, we just…” His eyes flick toward Cheyenne. “Calloway stuff. Strategy session.”

He kisses my cheek.

Not my mouth.

“You should join us.”

Join them.

In our restaurant.

At a table set for two, with two chairs, two glasses of wine, and a lit candle between them.

A working dinner, apparently.

“I’d love to.” I look around. “Can someone bring me a chair?”

The waiter is already moving.

He’s probably been watching this longer than I have.

He brings a third chair, a third place setting, and another wineglass. Then he pours from their bottle without asking,because he has worked Charleston dining rooms long enough to know exactly what kind of evening just walked through the door.

I want to tip him for the rest of his life.

I sit with Cheyenne across from me and Colt on my left.

“Cheyenne.” I give her my widest, safest smile. “It’s so good to see you outside the office. Colt talks about you constantly.”

The pause before she answers is brief enough to deny and long enough for me to hear.

“He talks about you more, I promise.”

“I doubt it.” I keep smiling. “He didn’t mention dinner. Was this last minute?”

“Calloway called this afternoon,” Colt says before she can answer. Too quickly. “We needed to nail down the term sheet before Monday.”

He grips his water glass, turns it a quarter turn, then lets it go.

He doesn’t quite look at me.