“It doesn’t get that cold here,” Lara said.
Thomas shrugged. “I have a car and the mountains aren’t far.”
Ben fought back the wave of jealousy that rolled over him when he pictured how many vacations Thomas had taken in his life with his family. How many winter nights he’d spent under blankets in front of fireplaces with Jennifer on his lap or by his side. He didn’t want to erase her from his past, but he also did? It was something he couldn’t make sense of, but he vowed to find a way to make new and better memories to overwrite the ones he knew caused Thomas the kind of pain some of his past with Jennifer had to have.
If he made it to the winter, his subconscious reminded him. It was April and they were having a picnic at sunset and hadn’t even bothered to bring coats. Winter was a long way away and he had no idea what the next months would bring.
“Fair,” Lara conceded.
“What about you?” Thomas asked.
Lara’s mouth crawled into a slow smile, and he immediately knew Thomas had passed her test. He’d watched her give the runaround to Cody once and he’d failed miserably. That should have been a sign to call things off, even before they’d gotten bad. But Lara swore her methodology was simple. She asked to learn, but where she gained the most insight into someone’s personality was if they turned the questions back on her.
Give and take, she’d told him.
“Yellow and fall,” she answered.
“Yellow?” Thomas laughed. “That’s rare.”
“Not sunshine yellow. Like mustard yellow or golden yellow.”
“Fair enough, a color that runs rampant in the fall,” he said.
“Jewel tones, you know.” Lara plucked a circle of salami off one of the cutting boards, rolled it up, and dropped it into her mouth.
“What about you?” Thomas asked, the question directed at him.
“Blue,” he answered.
“Dark?”
He nodded.
“And the season?”
“Spring,” he said.
“Why?”
“I like the idea of being able to start over. No matter how things were in the winter, spring brings a new chance for things to grow. And they don’t always look the same, but they’re there. They’ve survived.”
Thomas regarded him thoughtfully, a small crease between his eyebrows, and Ben worried he’d said too much and given away much more than he’d meant to with the answer. But Thomas didn’t push him on it, instead changing the subject.
“So, Lara.” He took a small drink of wine. “Tell me about our charcuterie.”
“Salami, prosciutto, peperoni, brie, gouda, cheddar, pickles.” She swirled her finger in a circle above the board. “Olives, figs, honey.”
“Surprisingly basic,” Ben quipped.
“It’s impressive,” Thomas countered, tucking a cube of gouda alongside a slice of prosciutto. “Do you work with food as a job?”
“I don’t work at all,” she answered with a laugh. “I married for money.”
“That’s a lie.” Ben threw a blueberry at her.
“I married someone much smarter and more focused than me for love, and after a few years, that turned into money. Which works for me. I can do what I love until I don’t love it anymore.”
Thomas dragged his tongue across the front of his teeth, his entire expression tight like he had something he wanted to say, but he didn’t want to offend.
