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“She wants the best for me. Don’t blame her. I asked her to help me with this dinner, and somehow Alden got involved. I’m glad he did because otherwise we wouldn’t be having a conversation as we just did in this fancy place.”
“I’ve seen you both together at church and at Midtown Village all year. I thought you were an item.” Forsythia sighed. “Come to find out you were only friends. That’s a shame. If I were that close to a guy, we’d be dating almost right away.”
“Maggie is my best friend. I try to keep my love life separate from my counselors.”
“I disagree with that mentality.” Forsythia pointed red manicured nails at him. “My parents met in chef school and married each other after only a few weeks of dating. They’re celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary in April.”
“Congratulations.”
“Dad said that his best friend is Mom and only her. He said that he would rather not have married anyone at all if he couldn’t be best friends with his wife.”
“Oh.”
“They do everything together, read each other’s minds, laugh at each other’s silly jokes.” Forsythia’s eyes were far away. “When you know someone that well, it’s so much easier to be on the same page in a marriage and talk about deep spiritual things with her. Right?”
Was Forsythia teaching him a lesson? Levi wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any of these things.
“Thing is—if your BFF is outside your marriage and is of the opposite gender, what would your future wife think?” Forsythia asked. “Does the marriage vow that says ‘forsaking all others’ mean anything to you?”
“I haven’t thought that far.”
“You might not have, but some of us women do. If I know Maggie well enough, she would have thought about it. Howcould she be your best friend when you’re married to someone else?”
Levi had to admit that Maggie had mentioned something similar more than once.
“Someone else should be sitting in this seat instead of me.”
Levi said nothing.
“Do you always want your relationship with Maggie to be platonic?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then let me ask you this. What if she marries someone else—like Alden—and then she can’t be your best friend anymore?”
Alden? Not him.
Levi felt his blood boil. Like he had to leave right now and go rescue Maggie.
Forsythia tapped the table with her fingernails. “You want Maggie, don’t you? More than her friendship, you want her to stay with you for maybe the rest of your life. You don’t want to share her emotions with Alden.”
“What are you talking about?” Levi felt lectured on, and yet he felt somewhat relieved that some restraints were being removed from him.
Perhaps Forsythia was here to tell him something that no other woman he knew could. Maggie wouldn’t because she didn’t have this personality. Her empathy for Levi was too strong. He couldn’t ask his cousin’s wife, Amy, because she didn’t know Maggie.
Here was Forsythia, who had nothing to lose, giving him wise counsel out of the blue—although this session would cost him the price of dinner for two.
“What am I talking about? Do you know why Alden went to all this trouble to make this dinner happen?”
“Tell me.” Levi sipped some sparkling water from the blue goblet. He realized they hadn’t ordered yet, but he wanted to know what Forsythia had to say about Alden.
“Because if you and I date, then Alden is free to date Maggie.”
Levi nearly dropped the goblet. He told himself to remain calm. So Alden had an ulterior motive.
“See, am I right or am I right?” Forsythia chuckled. “I think you and Maggie are already more than friends.”
“What do you mean?”
