Page 28

Two words. Simple and yet so perfect.

“The way you two met must be a good story.”

“It is.”

No elaboration. No need to give details.

Thank you thank you thank you, I say through a smile.

Apparently, that was enough for Dom, because at this point he gives up and turns to me, rubbing his belly, where a bell on his sweater’s Christmas tree bobbles. His neck cranes toward some imagined call of his name, and he nods at the tables of people behind me like they’ve been begging for his return.

I heard nothing.

“Well, I’ve gotta get back to the party, but come on over when you get the chance, Chlo. The whole gang’s here.”

I scan faces as I take in the invitation that immediately feels like handcuffs. I recognize a few people here, but not enough to recall their names. I don’t see anyone who could have been considered a friend. These were just people I shared lunch lines with.

“You really should come over.”

The handcuffs tighten around my wrists.

Don’t let it get to you. It doesn’t matter.

My feet start to squirm.

“Stephanie here?” I ask, hesitating. I didn’t know her well, but she was in the church choir.

He laughs. “No. She’s with the baby,” he says, as though I asked an absurd question.

Right. So the “whole gang” is at the party. Except his wife.

James rather obviously shifts his attention to the window, so over this conversation with this man that he has decided to go back to watching something more interesting: the snow.

Dom puts up a hand, all smiles. “Stephanie’s the glue in our family,” he says, and is that . . . defensiveness in his voice? “Motherhood is the highest honor to her. You should see our home.”

“I’m sure it’s just about perfect,” I say politely. James tips his head ever so slightly in agreement, but not in a way that seems like a compliment.

Dom’s gaze shifts unsteadily from me to James, and he takes a step back. “Well,” he says, “I’ve gotta get back, but . . . let’s catch up, Chlo.”

I nod automatically. James, still watching the window, shakes his head as though he’s just eaten something sour but isn’t going to make a big deal about it.

Somehow this whole interaction was a big public deal anyway.

My face is as hot as fried pancakes on a skillet when Dom finally leaves, and it’s not ’til he’s back at his table, facing away from us, that I take a breath.

I want to collapse into my own hands.

James, meanwhile, folds his hands up like a therapist and eyes me, frowning. “What was that?” he says. “More specifically, who was that?”

“That was the reason I moved across the country at eighteen.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew if I stayed two more minutes in this town, I’d end up becoming Mrs. Dominic Stewart.”

He tilts his head. One leg is crossed over the other, I notice. There is not one iota of a romantic aspect to this conversation. If I had any thought, however conspicuous, that this was becoming something of a date, that thought has been proved decidedly wrong. Right now he’s Freud, and frankly, he looks ten years older than me and a thousand years wiser. “So you knew you couldn’t say no to him, and you did the only thing you thought you could do: Get as far away as possible.” His eyes flicker to Dom’s back and narrow.

“Pretty much.”