He makes a big show of placing a slice of bread slathered in crushed tomato and garlic into his mouth very slowly. He chews with exaggerated deliberation.
“You’re a little shit, Brady.”
“You love me,” he says around a lump of half-chewed toast.
I laugh as I take another sip of wine. “I think I do.”
We both freeze at the same time as we realize what I’ve said. Brady still has half his appetizer squashed into one cheek like a squirrel, and if I didn’t actually love him, I’d wonder what I was doing out with someone with those table manners, but...
I love him.
“Brady, I—”
He straightens, but his reaction isn’t about my declaration or anything I’m about to say. Instead, he pulls the goddamn football phone out of his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll tell them I’ll call right back.”
“No,” I say, and I mean it. “This was the deal. Talk to them. I’m not going anywhere.”
I’m not. This life together could be good, I’m increasingly sure of it.
“I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head but slides his thumb to accept the call. “Hello, Brady speaking.”
He keeps shooting me guilty looks as he asks the same questions I almost know by heart already. “How long has it been like that? Are you getting an error message? Is it plugged in?” He gives me a pointed glance at that last one, and I flip him off over the edge of the table.
I love him. Somehow, the thought doesn’t scare me as much as it should. We’re good together. I’d have to be completely oblivious not to see that. And I have two kids and an ex-husband, and a festival that I care too much about to ever let other people run fully, so while he thinks the never-ending phone calls are a problem, they’re nowhere near the baggage I can fit just in my laptop bag.
“Nash?”
For a second, the whole restaurant seems to go silent. The diners, the servers, the clatter of plates and pans in the kitchen. It all disappears.
Except the sound of my name makes me jerk. I accidentally tip my wine glass over, spilling dark red wine over the tablecloth and drowning the plate of Serrano ham that has just been delivered.
Brady is still on the phone, brow furrowed as he asks questions that sound so basic now to someone who would be helpless without him. So many people seem to need him.
But he’s mine.
Except—
“Nash.”
Turning my head seems to take forever, but maybe I’m dreading the face I know I’ll see, because if I do, the spell will be broken. Reality will set in, along with all the bags and cargo that come with it.
“Oh. Hello.” The words are forced, even to my own ears. Tempranillo is dripping onto my lap, and if I stand, I’m going to look more ridiculous than I already feel.
“Fancy meeting you here.” His smile is as artificial as mine.
“I—” I glance at Brady, who is still on the phone, but he is watching me carefully.
Screw it. I stand and pretend we can’t all see the purple stain on my crotch.
“It’s good to see you,” I say.
It isn’t. Slowly the ambiance of the restaurant comes back. The music overhead on the sound system, the servers moving between tables in their Euro-fit shorts, and the smell of garlic and smoke from the grill.
The polite smile on the face of my ex-husband.
And, based on the way their hands are twined together, my ex-husband’s new boyfriend.
