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Sydney shrugged. “Joel, I don’t know.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “Bye, Sydney.”
“Is this ‘bye’ forever?” she called after him.
He opened the car door. “Syd, let’s be honest. Could it ever be?”
* * *
“Couldn’t find what I was looking for at the store, so I grabbed takeout.” Joel dropped three brown paper takeout bags on the kitchen island. “Hey, Ayesha, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Ayesha pointed to the steaming pot on the stovetop. “You told me I was on noodle duty.”
“We won’t need them anymore. Hey, Josiah?”
Josiah looked up from where he sat reading in the living room. Theo played on the floor in front of him, stacking huge Lego blocks.
“I brought takeout. Got your favorites. I have to talk to your mom for a bit, so can you help Theo?” He grabbed Ayesha’s wrist. “Thanks, buddy. You’re the best.”
He shut off the stove and then dragged her, stumbling, to the owner’s suite, shutting the door behind them.
“Did you know about Kofi?” he asked.
Her expression gave nothing away. “It depends. There are certain things I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Syd’s not your client.”
“She’s a friend.”
“Oh? Then what am I?”
“Joel,” she went to touch him, but he pulled away, “what happened?”
“I ran into Syd while I was picking up ingredients to make dinner for you and the boys,” he explained. “I overheard her on the phone with Larke. Then she came clean. I know Syd was seeing Kofi, and that she thought she was pregnant with his kid.”
Ayesha searched his face but didn’t comment.
“The tests you bought…were they for her?”
She still didn’t comment.
“Were they for Ari, then?”
“No. They weren’t.”
“Did you know she told Kofi she might be pregnant? Did you know he knew, and I didn’t?”
“Joel, I keep the things you tell me in confidence,” she said. “If a friend comes up to me and asks me not to tell someone something, you want me to go back on that?”
“Remember what we talked about before?” he asked. “Instead of us returning to our friendship the way it was, how about we change it up a little? After I leave for my next assignment, how about you leave for Maui and never come back here?”
She took a half step back. “What?”
“And I won’t come back to Maui.”
“Yes, you will,” she shot back.
“No, I won’t.”
