Page 74 of The Irresistible Distraction

“Sophie, on the offense.”

“You taught me offers have expiration dates. Negotiating is fun, right? You keep pushing against my boundaries, constantly telling me I’m overthinking. Well, given I’ve done nothing but people-watch for over a decade, working in the diner, do you really want to hear my analysis of you?”

A muscle in the side of Brody’s jaw tics. “Go ahead.”

“Mr. Beverly Hills runs away, using his midlife crisis as an excuse to take a vacation from himself. You claim to be great at providing distractions, but that works both ways. I’m your distraction. The difference is, at the end of these two or three months, you get to go back to Los Angeles and be a big attorney, whereas I’m going to have to live down that scene, the one you caused, forever.”

Brody takes a deep breath before asking, calmly, “What makes you think I’m going back to law?”

“You clearly loved astronomy and physics; you rarely mention law. You don’t talk about your practice, even though Seba says you occasionally take calls. Other than when you can weaponize it, there are no stories about law school or life at a law firm. Every happy story you ever have is about your Caltech pranks or astronomy. It’s like you had a happy childhood, a great college experience, and then we just . . . what, skip forward eight years? Yeah, I’m not living the life I dreamt of, I don’t love pretending docility with Adeline, but she’ll be my ex-mother-in-law for forever, so at least I’m clear about my choices.”

Brody looks down at his feet, shuffling, eyebrows raised. “You’d make a great attorney or . . . therapist.”

“I’m not trying to fix you, honest. But until you’re ready to make decisions about your own life, maybe stop messing with mine? Stop treating Sebastian and me the way you treat the dogs, feeding them steak and chicken under the table when you think we’re not looking. It’s a wonderful vacation for us, yes. But if you keep doing everything you’re doing, making grand declarations . . . you’re going to give people expectations that Sebastian and I are going to have to live down when you leave.”

“And what if I don’t leave?” His voice is quiet, a genuine query.

My voice is gentle as I explain. “Of course you’re going to leave. What job are you going to get here, in the not-town of Lake Arrowhead? You going to do pro bono work for Rachel while wearing Tom Ford suits to San Bernardino Family Court? Or will you do bi-weekly astronomy tours? Sponsor a chess camp?”

Brody shrugs, and I see a glimpse of the young man he must have been once, before all the fuckboy, fun-guy, class-clown persona hardened around him. He looks me directly in the eyes. “Sounds like a good life.”

“Without Cynthia, what will you eat? Without Cally, hiring dog trainers and whatever else she does, how do you function? But if you’re only working part-time, how will you afford all the parts of your life that allow you to optimize fun?”

“I make an obscene amount of money per hour. It could work.”

I let out a laugh that is not the least bit humorous. “Brody, and I ask this sincerely, do you even know what your weekly or monthly bills are? What happens if your father turns off that allowance you’re still collecting? If he doesn’t, God, I don’t even know how to say it . . . it’s such a ridiculous thing, re-inherit you?”

“I wouldn’t care, honestly.”

“And I’m saying only someone who’s never had to worry about money, who doesn’t understand what it means to balance their budget, can afford to think that way. Money matters.” I take a deep breath and admit a truth I’ve never uttered out loud, not even to myself, really. “I should have recognized the financial strain of having a child and demanded the Williamses give me more. They were part owners in the diner, and if you hadn’t worked out the timeline yet, the divorce happened more or less when my parents died. At the time, all I could think was that I wanted to preserve some part of them. It hasn’t been easy, and it definitely wasn’t the path of least resistance, but I survived. You?” I think about the way Brody left his leftovers when we went out to eat at Mission Inn and how difficult it had been for me not to eat the last two bites of filet mignon off his plate. Filet mignon. It was stupid how sad that made me, the differences in our expectations and understanding of privilege. “You . . . couldn’t survive on my budget.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Correct.” I am suddenly exhausted, sweaty and sticky because of all the additional scrubbing I did in an effort to get away from the people and their questions, hiding away with a Brillo pad during what should have been my lunch break.

Brody’s eyes narrow, which does nothing to detract from the unmistakable gleam in his blue-green depths before he grins.

“Want to bet?”

I shake my head. “No, because not everything should be a bet or deal, debt or collection.” Looking at the mulish expression on Brody’s face, I can tell he doesn’t get it. That his is a world where no one has seriously told him no. “I can’t grow up to be an Olympic figure skater. It doesn’t hurt my feelings to say it, doesn’t lessen who I am as a human being. You can’t be poor. You could never live in a house like this full-time, couldn’t put down the roots necessary to live a normal life.”

“Normal is a distribution.”

“What?”

“It’s something my friend is always saying. Lucas claims that when people say normal, they often mean mean or even median, this idea that you line everything up and either take the average or the point in the middle. But in reality, normal is a particularly maligned word in mathematics. Normal is a bell curve, a distribution of numbers and data points. By some interpretations, living a normal life is just . . . living.”

I close my eyes. “Are you really trying to argue math with me right now?” I have the sudden realization that this is probably how Sebastian will fight with me eventually, this demented, go-off-on-tangents pedantry that gets us absolutely nowhere.

“There are many ways to live a normal life, but . . . if it’s what you wanted, I think I could live a normal life, the median or mean or whatever you meant by that word life, here, with you.”

I shake my head, because the idea is absurd.

Brody comes toward me again, both palms facing up this time, trying to cajole. “Let’s make one more deal. Think of it as half apology for what I did at the diner and half me trying to figure out my midlife crisis.”

I’m quiet even as I place my hands in his, both loving and hating the fact that I respond to such a simple touch, that I was able, for once, to be completely honest with someone and not feel guilty afterwards.

A moment passes before Brody asks, “Aren’t you going to ask me what the deal is?”