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“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” He lifted his gaze to meet my own, and taking a cue from his own playbook, I winked at him, which made him grin. I loved his real smiles. They were few and far between. Zeke was more likely to smirk or fake a grin than anything else, but these real ones were like manna from heaven.
“Sure. As long as you understand I can cut up my own food. Been doing so since I was a little girl.” I held up my hand. “And I’m not a little girl now. Just so we’re clear.”
He nodded. “Right. But if you do it, then you’re going to be taking these little tiny pieces and not really eating anything.”
Zeke could only say that because he didn’t yet know about me and the obsession with cheese. I might take it straight off his plate and eat it if I wasn’t really strict with myself. He could keep the chocolate mousse, give me brie any day of the week.
I took a bite of the goat cheese and had to close my eyes because it was so delicious. The taste exploded in my mouth. Creamy. Soft. I barely had to chew it. Before I could stop myself,I let out the smallest moan and then wished I hadn’t. He’d promised not to let other people make fun of me or to make fun of me to others, but I was sure I’d just earned myself his teasing from just how much I loved that bite. I opened my lids and waited for it.
Zeke stared at me from across the table, saying nothing. There was heat in his gaze, but otherwise, I couldn’t make out his thoughts. Would I ever be able to? “Why?”
He blinked. “What?”
Had he lost track of this conversation? My lunch partner shifted in his seat, leaning forward just a little bit, and took a sip of his wine. I wanted more of that goat cheese, but had to be careful about it. Too much all at once might be dangerous for my equilibrium.
“Why do they click on me more?”
His smile was slow. “Because it’s impossible to stop looking at you once someone starts. You’re completely intoxicating. Apparently, the way that you find that cheese.”
I just had to own my dairy fixation and get it out there. There was nothing else for it but to lean into the upcoming tease. “I love dairy. I should have warned you. I can’t get enough. If I have to go to rehab, it will be because I am addicted to it. Cheese is my weakness. After today, I have to ask you to not put this out in front of me again. Not if you want me to fit into the clothes you just spent a fortune on for me.”
He leaned across the table, hands on both sides of it. “I would buy you ten times that amount of clothes to watch you eat that goat cheese every day just like that.”
I was suddenly braver, stronger, and sexier than I had ever been. The feeling wouldn’t last. I knew enough about temporary bouts of elation to understand they didn’t last, but in that moment, I was queen of the fucking universe. Before I could talkmyself out of it, I picked up the rest of that piece of cheese and put it right in my mouth.
The same flood of deliciousness struck me, and though I intended to keep my eyes open, I really just couldn’t. It was almost sensory overload. Closing my eyes, I let it rush through me, let myself enjoy the sheer magnitude of pleasure that overtook my body in the moments it took to chew and swallow that cheese. When it was finally finished, I made myself open my eyes to meet his gaze. That was embarrassing, but somehow also filled with elation at the same time. I picked up my wine and sipped it.
In another world, where I didn’t have to worry every second of the day about my sheer existence, I could have moments like this all the time. But life was hard, things were rough on everyone, and I had it pretty easy considering. Poor Layla. Poor little rich girl.
“A million different thoughts just crossed through your mind, and now you are feeling sad. How did you go from such sheer happiness to being unhappy in under five seconds flat?”
I shrugged. “I’m a lot.”
“You asked me why I didn’t try to get away from your dad earlier when I knew what he was doing.” He was so serious in that moment, still leaning forward over the table. I wanted to look away, but made myself keep my gaze locked on his. Some things were supposed to be intense, they were meant to be. I had a gut instinct this was one of those moments.
I nodded. “I did.”
“Don’t picture me better than your dad. When we started out, we were very bright, very talented people, who were behind the eight ball from moment one. We didn’t go to the schools our colleagues went to in high school. I was an Ivy Leaguer trying to pay for my books by serving pizza every day. Until I figuredout that I could make more money betting in casinos and at the track. I was good at it.”
I tried to picture that. I’d gone to those schools, wherever we lived. My father had insisted we all be educated like that, even though the constant moving made it ridiculously hard for me.
He sat back and took his wine. “We hated those boarding school fuckers.” He smiled like the memory was amusing to him. “Your father had just lost your mother two years earlier when I met him. I was raising money for a defunct fund that I was keeping afloat with investors who wanted out, and I couldn’t blame them. I met your dad. He was…having a bad moment at the bank where he was working.”
I’d never heard any of this before. “In Chicago.”
“No, by then he’d moved you to Boston. I never knew you guys in Chicago. Never knew your mom. He didn’t like to talk about her, and it was almost a year of knowing him that I even knew he had four fucking children.”
Now that was disappointing but not surprising. “We were always his afterthoughts.”
“Not his afterthoughts. His guarded secrets.” He drank more of his wine. “We all have them.”
“Are you hiding a dead wife and children?”
Zeke actually laughed. “Absolutely not. No. I’ve fathered no offspring.” He rubbed his eyes. “And grateful I haven’t. Who needs that kind of leash? Wife? Kids? No.”
That was funny, because I could sort of see him with a wife, with children. He liked watching sunsets. Wouldn’t it be better to have someone to watch them with? He’d wanted me to see. I didn’t say that because it would take us off track, and I wanted to stay right where we were.
“We made each other a promise. We’d be each other’s person. Count on each other. He was a genius, I was talented. Together, we could do great things, and we did. So when it wentsour, and it did, as all things do because nothing lasts forever, I didn’t get out as fast as I should have. I’m decades behind in ending things, because I wanted to hold on to the idea that what we formed was real, that it could work. I sort of understood him. He was out there doing things that he shouldn’t have been doing because that was his background, like it’s mine. You think I don’t get feeling phony in my clothes? Layla, you are looking at the king of faking it. Dress the part, and people believe you. But I learned long ago, and you’ll get there some day, that we can be whoever the fuck we want to be on the inside. We can be real. However, we fake it during the day; at night, we’re still our best and worst selves. Don’t let the playing the part drag down the person playing it.”
