“Phew,” Alex says. “I thought that phone was toast.”
“You do strike me as someone who should invest in a quality phone case.”
Alex gives me a scathing look as he eases upright, then crosses the room to scoop up his phone. “I’m going to take that as a compliment: you think I enjoy such a vigorous and active lifestyle, I need a phone case to see my phone safely through all my fearsome escapades.”
I snort. “You’re also afunnydrunk.”
A smile spreads across his face. He bows theatrically. “Thank you.”
“Google really said we should get on the dating apps?” I ask.
His smile dissolves. “You had to bring that up.”
“It didn’t happen all that long ago. I thought I was just picking up where we left off before you launched your phone across the room.”
Alex flops down beside me again, flat onto his back, and sighs. “You’re right. I sidetracked us. Yes, Google said that. I just really don’t want to get on the apps.”
I peer over at him. “Ever or right now?”
Alex is quiet for a beat. “I don’t know, Ted. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t just bad at being married to Jen. Maybe I’m just bad at being married.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m intense, and historically, when I get passionate about something, it eclipses everything else. From the moment I opened it, my restaurant was everything to me, and I couldn’t see that I’d sidelined my marriage until I was about to be a dad, and by then, it was too late.” Alex glances at me. “I don’t work at the restaurant anymore. That was my Hail Mary, to try to salvage things with Jen. I quit, left it in the very capable hands of myformer sous, Olu. The only work I’ve done since then has been on my cookbooks. I haven’t gone back to work at the restaurant since.”
I turn on my side, elbow tucked under my head, and face him. “What’s your restaurant’s name?”
His brow furrows. “Everything I just said, and that’s your question?”
I nod.
He smiles faintly, his look quizzical, then tells me, “Squisito.”
“That’s Italian?” I ask. At his nod in response, I add, “Italian for…?”
His gaze travels over me. “Exquisite.”
Heat flushes through me. I know he wasn’t talking about me, when he said it, but he was looking at me when he did. My brain understands the difference. My body does not.
“I’d like to eat there sometime,” I tell him.
“You have, in a way. The lasagna I fed you, when we went to Luna’s—that’s one of my recipes, a favorite at Squisito.”
I smile.
“What about you?” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He turns to face me, too, elbow tucked under his head, mirroring me. “Do you want to get on the apps, at any point?”
I stare at him, my heart’s pace picking up. “I don’t know. I think, before I figure that out, I have to figure out myself better. Everything feels jumbled right now. I feel disoriented, and… bruised.”
A soft grunt leaves Alex. “Bruisedis a good word.”
For a moment, we just look at each other, no sound but the hum of cicadas, the box fan whirring in my window.
“So that’s that,” I tell him. “We won’t get on the apps. Maybe one day, but not today. Today, we’ll… do the Wordle.”