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“They do that here,” came a voice to his right, and he turned to find the woman who had been three tables over had shifted herself, her drink, and her plate over. “Also, I’m not hitting on you.”
Emil blinked, then burst into nervous laughter. “Oh…okay?”
“Men seem to think I’m hitting on them when I talk to them, and usually I ignore everyone, but you look really sad, so I figured some friendly conversation couldn’t hurt.”
Emil took her in. She was short, curvy, long hair cascading down her back, gorgeous, large hazel eyes. He understood why men would definitely want to think she was hitting on them. Luckily, the last thing he had room in his life for was a relationship, complicated or not.
“I’m Emil.”
“Cool name.” Her face lit up with her smile as she offered her hand. “I’m Dahlia. Like the Black Dahlia, only I’m totally not a serial killer. My mom was really into horticulture when she was pregnant with me.”
Emil’s smile widened, and it made his cheeks ache because he wasn’t sure he’d held a grin for that long in years. Her hand was soft and strangely comforting, and it felt bad to let it go. “Thanks for joining me,” he told her.
She winked at him as she grabbed the edge of her table and pushed it a little closer. “So. Why so glum, sugar plum?”
The strange little nickname made him chuckle. “Do I really look that bad?” He felt the urge to rush to the bathroom and check his reflection, but he didn’t want to come across like a whacko.
Dahlia tilted her head to the side as she regarded him. “Better than the guy I ran into this morning when I was coming out of my office but worse than my receptionist, who’s in the middle of a messy divorce.”
Emil sighed and shrugged, going for the easy answer, even if it was partially a lie. “My mom died.”
“Oh my God,” Dahlia said. “When? Please don’t say today.”
Emil had to laugh as he shook his head. “About eight months ago. I—” He was cut off by the server who appeared to take his order, and he quickly glanced at Dahlia’s plate before saying, “I’ll have what she’s got. And a Maker’s Mark. Rocks. Dahlia, can I get you a drink?”
“Two years sober,” she said proudly.
Emil’s cheeks burned. “Oh. Cancel mine.”
“Hey, no. It’s fine,” she started, but Emil nodded at the server sternly.
“Sparkling water with lime.” The server hesitated, then hurried off, and Dahlia sighed loudly as Emil sat back against the bench and gave her a careful look. “I think you might be my sign.”
Dahlia raised one of her very lovely shaped brows. “Your what now?”
“I’m probably an alcoholic. Or close to it. Drinking is definitely my coping mechanism with, you know, life.”
She hummed softly and picked up her drink, swirling some of the ice around in it. “That’s how it started for me. Then suddenly, I was divorced, and I lost custody of my daughter, and my mom will only talk to me every other Thursday for half an hour until she’s certain I’m not going to fall off the wagon. Which will probably be never.”
He winced. “I’m so sorry.”
Dahlia waved him off. “Please don’t be. I had a complicated childhood—something you look like you understand.”
Emil fought back a bitter laugh. “You could say that.”
“Thought so. Like recognizes like, you know?” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “I didn’t realize how bad it was getting until the ground fell out from under me. I hurt people, and I felt like a monster, but usually when that happens, people go one of two ways. Or that’s what my therapist says.”
“And you went…?”
Her grin went a little lopsided. “I wanted to make it up to my daughter and my ex. So I chose that road. It’s better now. I have a good job, and I happily pay a fuckload of child support, and I get to see her almost whenever I want. My mom’s the only person who decided she was never going to trust me again, and considering her hating me was one of the reasons I started drinking…” She trailed off and shrugged, then laughed. “Sorry. I sometimes have a bad habit of trauma dumping on total strangers.”
“I’m not complaining. It’s kind of nice to know that there are other people with a past as twisted as my own.” He stared down at his fingers. “How did you, you know…start? To get better, I mean. I tell myself to stop all the time, but it just never works.”
“Honestly?”
“The most brutal honesty,” Emil said, bracing himself.
Dahlia grabbed her bag and rummaged around before pulling out a card. “I got a therapist.” She slapped it on the table. “You can tell her you know me, but she won’t gossip about either of us. She’s actually good at what she does.”
