She stares at me, blue eyes big and unblinking. Then she nods. “So just the truth, minus all the best parts.”
“Exactly.”
She presses her lips together, fighting a smile, and leans in. “Are you going to hold my hand under the table the whole time?”
I move my hand from the table and rest it on her thigh, just above the knee. Her skin is warm, smooth, and she tenses for a fraction of a second before relaxing into it.
“I was thinking higher,” I whisper.
She flushes, but doesn’t move my hand. “You’re incorrigible, Hunter.”
“You love it.”
She bites her lip and smiles sweetly. “Yes. I do.”
We sit like that, my hand on her knee under the table like a pair of teenagers at prom, while the rest of the world spins just outside these soundproofed walls.
The parents are late. They’re always late. But it gives us time to rehearse the parts that matter.
“If they ask how I’m doing, I’ll say?—?”
“Recovering,” I say. “Dissociative fugue. Selective amnesia. Medical terms. Keep it clinical. No mention of how you spent the last month in your stepbrother’s bed.”
She snorts, and it’s the most honest sound I’ve ever heard in a restaurant this expensive. “That was the best part.”
“But you’ll do it?”
She nods, just once.
I squeeze her thigh. “You’re a natural, sweetheart.”
She leans in so close I can feel her breath in my ear. “You don’t know the half of it.”
The parents arrive, and we break apart so fast the air crackles. My mother glides in first, all pearls and neutral tones, like the world’s most sophisticated landmine. Tara’s dad follows, taller than I remember, hair grayer and suit more wrinkled, but still moving with the bone-deep confidence of a man who’s never met a problem he couldn’t throw money at.
I stand, give them the smile I reserve for board meetings and IPOs.
“Catherine. Robert. Good to see you.”
Robert grunts, and my mom dabs the air beside my cheek in the direction of a hug. I sit before they do, on purpose. Power move. Tara covers a laugh with her water glass.
They take their seats. Robert across from Tara, Catherine directly across from me. It’s symmetrical, like a chessboard. I don’t know who’s black and who’s white.
The waiter appears again, pours the water, vanishes. The tension stays.
“So,” Catherine says, drawing the word out. “How are you, darling?”
Tara straightens her back. She looks like a different person than the girl I found on the street a month ago. “I’m good,” she says. “Better every day.”
“That’s wonderful,” Catherine purrs, not sounding particularly convinced. “Hunter says you’re making excellent progress.”
Tara’s smile is rehearsed but not fake. “He’s been helping me a lot. With the memories. And everything else.”
Robert clears his throat. “We were very concerned, Tara. You vanished after the car accident. We only knew what your friend Eliza told us. And then when Hunter said you were staying with him, you wouldn’t answer your phone, your emails?—”
“I know,” Tara says. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture practiced but somehow vulnerable. “I’m sorry about that. It was confusing because like I told you, I was experiencing some temporary amnesia. So I didn’t really remember you, believe it or not.”
“We’re just glad you’re safe,” Catherine says in a gentle tone.