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“That was painfully polite.”
“Yes, but I’ll get the Spanish Inquisition if we meet for drinks. And when she knows about us, whatever our pretendusis, everyone back home will, as well.”
His hand tightens briefly around mine. He’s looking at something over my shoulder. “She’s still glancing over at us every so often.”
“What are the odds that her agency sends her to Barbados at the exact same time as I’m here?”
“Slim to none,” he says. “If I argued that in court, the jury would draw their own conclusion.”
“But you don’t go to court.”
He smiles. “No, I don’t. Because I’m good at my job… and also because I’m a corporate lawyer.”
“So humble,” I tease.
“False modesty is a sin.”
“Thank you,” I say, tapping my finger against the back of his hand. They’re still intertwined. “For this.”
Serious eyes meet mine. There’s something about being enveloped in his focus. It makes me feel seen and heard on a level I don’t think I ever been before.
Like whatever I have to say is interesting.
“How did your families handle the breakup?”
“Not well,” I say. “My mother used to knit him a new sweater every Christmas.”
He grimaces. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m an only child, you know? My parents thought of him as a son.” I give a half chuckle. “My mother had her own breakup with him.”
“I have to hear that story.”
Thinking about it makes me smile a bit. “Well, she went to his house and told him that she was disappointed in him, that he had hurt her, too. And then, she dramatically unraveled the arm of the sweater she’d already knitted him for next Christmas.”
Phillip’s eyes widen. “No way.”
“Oh yes. My mom’s awesome and crazy like that. My dad, well, he turned into the exterminator.”
“Punched the dipshit?”
“Oh God, no, he would never. No, he made sure to scrub our entire lives of any mention of Caleb. From one day to the next, my father had removed all pictures of him from the photo albums and had thrown out the air fryer Caleb bought them for their thirtieth wedding anniversary.”
“Poor air fryer,” Phillip says. “Civilian causalities.”
“It really was a war crime. It made incredible fries.”
His fingers tighten around mine. “So what do your parents do?”
“My mom’s the chattiest librarian you’ll ever meet, and my dad’s the detail-oriented accountant,” I say. “They’re great people.”
“They sound like it,” he says. “Shereallyunraveled her knitting in front of him?”
“On his very doorstep,” I say. “My mother could have been an actress in another life.”
“How about Caleb’s family?” He nods his head toward the bar. “His… parents and cousins?”
I sigh. “I haven’t had a lot of contact with them since the breakup. I sort of… well.”
