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“The thing is, if Owen didn’t know anything about the fraud, he would have wanted more information from me. He would have needed a lot more information about what was going on at The Shop. He’d have said something like, Slow down, Jules. Who do they think is guilty? Does it look like Avett spearheaded the fraud alone or is the corruption more widespread? What does it look like happened, how much has been stolen? But he didn’t want to know more. Not about any of it.”
“What did he want to know?” I say.
“How long he had to get out,” she says.
Twenty-Four Hours Earlier
Owen and I sat on the dock, eating Thai food straight from the take-out containers. Drinking ice cold beer.
He was in a sweatshirt and jeans, bare feet. There was barely a sliver of moon, the Northern California night chilly and wet, but Owe
n wasn’t cold at all. I, on the other hand, was wrapped in a blanket, two pairs of socks, puffy boots.
We were sharing a papaya salad and spicy lime curry. Owen was tearing up, the heat from the chilies going straight to his eyes.
I stifled a laugh. “If you can’t hack it,” I said, “we can order the curry mild next time.”
“Oh, I can hack it,” he said. “If you can hack it, I can hack it…”
He stuffed his mouth with another bite, his face turning red as he struggled to swallow. He reached for his beer and guzzled it down.
“See?” he said.
“I do,” I said.
Then I leaned in to kiss him.
After I pulled back, he smiled at me, touched my cheek.
“What do you think? Can I get under that blanket with you?” he asked.
“Always.”
I moved over, wrapping the blanket over his shoulders, feeling the heat of his body. His barefooted body, a good ten degrees warmer than mine.
“So tell me,” he said. “What was your favorite thing today?”
This was something we sometimes did on days we got home late—on days we were too tired to get into the big stuff. We each picked one thing from the day to tell each other about. One good thing from our separate lives.
“I actually think I have a pretty cool idea for a little treat for Bailey,” I said. “I’m going to re-create the brown butter pasta for dinner tomorrow night. You know, the one we had on her birthday at Poggio? Don’t you think she’ll love that?”
He wrapped his arm more tightly around my waist, kept his voice low. “Are you asking me if she’ll love that? Or if that will make her love you?”
“Hey. Not nice.”
“I’m trying to be nice,” he said. “Bailey’s lucky to have you. And she’s going to come around to that. Pasta experiment or not.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I know things.”
I didn’t say anything, not exactly believing him. I wanted him to do more to bridge the gap between Bailey and me, even if I didn’t know what that could possibly be. If he wasn’t going to do that, I at least wanted him to tell me I was doing everything I could.
As if hearing my thoughts, he pushed my hair off my face. He kissed the side of my neck.
“She really loved that pasta though,” he said. “It’s a sweet thing to do.”
“That’s all I’m saying!”
