He said it gently, which made it land harder. He was right. We both knew it. The dinners, the easy evenings, the never quite getting around to the next thing. Tom had been married once, briefly, years before I’d known him. He had come out of it careful in a specific way that matched my own caution so neatly that we’d never had to talk about it.
It had been convenient. It had been good. It had not been the thing that kept me up at night.
"Whatever is or isn't happening," he said, "don't factor me in." He looked at me steadily, his gaze clear and remarkably kind. "I mean that."
"Nothing is happening," I said.
He smiled at that. It was a small, slightly sad smile that didn't reach for an argument. "Okay," he said.
He picked his fork back up. I did the same. We finished dinner in a quiet that felt different—thinner, somehow—and then he washed the dishes. He kissed me at the door and said goodnight. I watched him walk down the corridor and stood in the doorway until he had turned the corner and the sound of his footsteps had faded completely.
Then I went back inside. I stood in the kitchen looking at the two plates in the rack and the half-empty bottle of wine on the counter.
Nothing is happening.
I’d said it like it was true. I’d almost believed it while I was saying it.
Almost.
Chapter Thirty
Jack
I'd made the sauce twice.
The first time was fine. I tasted it, decided it was fine, and left it on the stove. Then, forty minutes later, I tipped it down the sink and started again without examining why. The second batch was better. Probably. I tasted it four times to be sure.
Lily was at the kitchen table doing homework. Or pretending to. She had a pencil in her hand, but she’d been watching me for the last ten minutes with the focused attention of a wildlife documentary.
"You're being weird," she said.
"I'm making dinner."
"You keep stirring it."
"That's how you make sauce."
She looked at the pot, then back at me. "You already stirred it."
"You can stir it more than once."
She seemed unconvinced. She put her pencil down and propped her chin in her hands. "Are you nervous?"
"No."
"You look nervous."
"I'm not nervous. Do your homework."
She picked the pencil back up, satisfied in a way that suggested she'd gotten what she came for. I turned back to the sauce and stirred it again, which I was aware was not helping my case.
It was just dinner. Maddie had done me a favor at the supermarket, Lily had invited her, I'd made too much pasta for weeks and now there was a third person coming and that was fine. It was just dinner.
I stirred the sauce.
"Gerald thinks you should change your shirt," Lily said, without looking up from her homework.
I looked down at my shirt. It was a grey t-shirt, clean and faded, the kind of thing I wore when I wasn't planning on seeing anyone but the TV. I went upstairs and changed into something with a collar.