Page 23 of The Irresistible Distraction

And I find that I do, truly, want to talk about it. “He had cancer. Detected fairly late and—they didn’t tell me initially.” Because I was pregnant, because they didn’t want to compound the complications in my life. “The short version is that they were driving back from chemo during one of the worst storms in a decade. There was a downed tree, my mother was too tired to react in time.”

“Your wording suggests that you’ve potentially overanalyzed a random, tragic event into something you feel a modicum of guilt about.”

“My mother was a safer driver than I ever was.” It’s a common refrain I’ve had to remind myself of.

“Which means yes, you have been overthinking this.”

My laugh is watery. This man would be a wonderful lawyer; I’m sure he’d tear witnesses apart upon cross-examination. He’d likely be an effective counterterrorist interrogator as well. An FBI agent. “Logically, I understand that it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if I was with them that night, but the fact is, I wasn’t there. I was so wrapped up in my own drama that I added to their worries, made them ten percent more tired, and maybe that impacted their reaction time.”

His hand on mine is gentle, massaging just enough to let me know he’s still there, still listening. Finally, he tells me, “When our fears are illogical, no reasoned explanation can break through.” He smooths away a strand of hair I hadn’t realized had escaped my ponytail. “We have two options: I can give you the fortune cookie advice and hope I do it in an articulate enough way that it sticks . . . or I can try to distract you.”

“Both.”

He laughs and gives my fingers a playful squeeze. “Loved ones always add to our worries. It’s a burden that’s also a blessing, a responsibility that is also simultaneously a privilege in a way that seems like a contradiction but isn’t.”

There are a few loose fireworks that begin, though the main show won’t be until later, and we are both silent as I let his words float around my head, hoping they’ll take root, worrying they won’t.

“You were close?” he asks.

“Extraordinarily.”

He pulls me toward him then, nothing sexual, just holding me against his chest, his strong arm curling around my back.

“Why don’t you tell me about them?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Favorite dish.”

“That’s easy. They were diner people⁠—”

I don’t know how it happens, or why Sexy Tourist is so good at . . . talking and questioning and listening, but he asks me a series of questions that range from silly (something they were obsessed with that you thought was stupid, which is easy, that scene from Heat that Papa made me watch over and over again) to genuinely nostalgic (the most important lesson they taught me was the idea of a present purse and a future one, a present life we enjoyed, balanced against a future dream).

It is well and truly dark by the time he finishes with his questions, and I have babbled for goodness knows how long. The tears start then. Because it’s been so long since I’ve let myself think about how much I miss my parents. It’s a weird juxtaposition, my tears flowing as stray fireworks are set off in the background.

Afterward, I apologize, my breathing jagged as I wipe at my eyes. “I’m sorry, I loathe criers.”

His voice is gently amused. “Crying once in a while doesn’t make you a crier. And even if it did, what’s wrong with that?”

“If someone cries for attention⁠—”

“Which this clearly isn’t an example of. Even without cross-examining you, I can guess that you’re the type who cries silently, in the shower. It’s clear in the way you’re always watching out for others. Yes, at the diner where it’s your job, but also the way you track your staff, the way everyone accepts that your break comes last, tells me this behavior is habitual.” He undoes my ponytail, playing with the individual strands of my hair. “Let me put it this way. When a toddler falls, we don’t label him a faller. Even though I yelped a little because I saw a brown recluse, you don’t think of me as a yelper.”

“It wasn’t a brown recluse,” I remind him as he offers me a large napkin so I can blow my nose, grateful for the distraction of his humor. “Not very good . . . first date stuff.” I sniff and remind myself that he’s a tourist. There is an expiration date. “Not that we’re necessarily going on a second date⁠—”

He kisses the top of my head, a very quick, very chaste touch of his lips to my hair. “It’s the best first date stuff I’ve ever done.”

“You must not go on a lot of first dates.”

“Not like this, no. Never.”

And maybe it’s just a line. Maybe this is how all men with experience talk. Jesse was my first everything. Tyler 2.0 wasn’t particularly worldly.

But it doesn’t feel like a line.

He pulls me away from his chest enough to look at my face, wiping a tear from my cheek, and affirms, “This is such a wonderfully memorable date⁠—”

“Childhood stories and tears?”