I kissed her again, this time gently, without the urgent need I’d felt just minutes before. But she’d held me so fiercely, lettingme cry, and it had broken something loose inside me, and now I could see everything as plainly and clearly as I ever had in my life. Lila Morgan was my true love. My soulmate. I knew this woman. My tears had leaked into her skin.
“You are magnificent, Lila Morgan.” I stroked my thumb over her bottom lip and made her shiver. My touch made her shiver. It made me nearly delirious to understand that I had the power to move her.
“I can’t imagine not knowing you, now that I do,” Lila said.
“Do you know what else? I don’t know that I’ve ever liked anyone as much as I like you. And I don’t mean just that I’m falling in love with you. It’s just you. Everything about you transfixes me.”
“I like you too.” She smiled, gesturing to the open bottle of wine on the table. “Let’s have a glass, shall we? Distract ourselves from wanting to rip the other’s clothes off.”
I laughed, deep in my chest, but quiet because of the girls.
We settled on the couch with our wine, each on one end of the loveseat, with our heels touching like a bridge across the cushion. I lifted my glass. “To this day. And you. And Mia. And my sweet girl finding her way back to me at last.”
She clinked her glass with mine.
“You have our hearts in your hands,” Lila said. “Both Mia and me. But I’m not scared. I don’t know why.” She rubbed a circle across her chest. “All I feel is peace. Right here.”
“That’s because you see me for who I am. You’ll never have to wonder where I am or who I’m with. Nor will Mia. Even with everything going on—the show drama, the gossip posts, someone watching the house—it can’t really touch us. No one can make this less important. This is it, Lila. You and me and the girls.”
“Do you think you could love Mia like you do Margot?” Lila asked, voice like a feather, soft and downy.
I tried to keep my voice steady, but it wobbled and croaked. “I’m not sure why or how, but Mia was meant to be mine. At first I thought her presence in my life might be a way to lessen the pain of Margot’s loss. And a way for Mia to heal from her father’s betrayal. That we could be that person for each other. But now? Now that Margot’s back with me, I see that it’s actually Mia who’s given me everything I’ve ever wanted. You—and Margot. How could I not love the person who changed my life that profoundly?”
“And here I thought the dating app scheme was ill-advised,” Lila said.
“Ninety-eighth percentile.”
We laughed softly, swirling our wine and sipping in unison. But I didn’t ask her what she tasted. It didn’t matter. This wine would always taste like tonight. Like the night I knew I loved Lila Morgan. No vintage would ever be better than this.
“Can I bring my mom here for dinner?” I asked. “I want her to know you like I do. And Mia.”
“I would love nothing more,” Lila said. “Tomorrow night?”
“You have work tomorrow.”
“That’s true. And everything’s been such a nightmare.”
“I’ll cook,” I said. “Show off my culinary skills to impress you.”
“I could not be more impressed, but yes, you may cook,” Lila said.
“I know there will be challenges,” I said. “I’m old enough to know that.”
“With your meal?”
“No, with this. All of us. Trying to figure out what we are together. And Margot has a long way to go before she’s healed.”
“One day at a time,” Lila said. “Tomorrow is another day to give her our whole hearts.”
For the second night in a row, I was on Lila’s couch. It was comfortable enough, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay in the dark, listening to the rustle of the seagrasses outside the windows. Upstairs, the floor creaked—Lila moving around her bedroom. Perhaps she couldn’t sleep either. Being apart from her felt wrong, but I would never have pushed her to allow me into her bed. Especially with the girls in the room next door. Still, a man could dream.
My mind wouldn’t quiet. Instead of replaying the day, it kept drifting backward—to the path that had led me here.
Twenty years ago, I’d been a kid from Willet Cove with no prospects and no money for college. My mom had done everything she could, but a teacher’s salary only stretched so far. I’d thought about culinary school. Cooking had become a serious hobby in high school, but I had no idea if it was a valid path. Mama suggested I work in a restaurant for a bit—see if I liked it. So I took the first decent job I could find: bussing tables at an upscale restaurant in San Francisco.
I’d loved it from the first moment, even though I was just the kid clearing tables. I loved the smells of the kitchen, the banter between the chefs, the pretty waitresses who teased me and made me blush. Eventually, I moved up to waiting tables, learning more about food and wine with each passing day. Jean-Pierre Laurent was the head sommelier—French, sixty-something, with a zest for life and wine.
On my twenty-second birthday, he asked me to taste a wine. “First you swirl and lean close, sniffing the wine like a dog might.”
