I finally know his name, and it’s so very fitting that his name, just like everything about him, isn’t in any way...common. Not John or Mike or Dave. But Santino, which is very Continental, and fully explains why he holds his fork the way he does and why he always seems a thousand more times more graceful and elegant than most other men I know. Damian is probably the only exception, but...maybe that’s because they’re both billionaires?
Santino Aleotti.
The more times I think of his name, the moreunrealit feels.
Not surreal, but completely unreal.
It’s just completely unreal that a man of his stature has been eating in our hole-in-the-wall cafe for thirty-plus days straight, and evenmoreunreal is the fact that he noticed how I’ve been staring at him all this time. In fact, he didn’t just notice it. He cared enough to count, and isn’t that the most unreal thing of all?
"Thea?"
Jolie's voice. She's coming out of the coffee shop, and she's got my coat in her hands, and she drapes it over my shoulders without saying anything.
"Thanks," I manage.
"You want to go home?"
"No. I'm okay. I just—it's a lot."
"Yeah." She leans against the wall next to me. "For what it's worth? I don't think he cares that you're a waitress. Or that you have bald tires. Or that you're twenty-one and he's thirty-four and you live in different worlds."
"How do you know?"
"Because he followed you home, Thea.”
Jolie’s matter-of-fact voice makes my heart start doing foolish things again.
“Men like him don’t do that unless they care.”
I want to believe her. I do. But there's this voice in the back of my head—the one that sounds like every guidance counselor and social worker and well-meaning adult from Kansas who told me I needed to be realistic, that girls like me don't get fairy tale endings, that my
father's choices meant I had to be careful about mine—
"Hey." Jolie bumps my shoulder with hers. "You want to walk? Clear your head?"
"Yeah. That sounds good."
We walk through town. It's the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday, so most of the tourists are up on the mountain skiing, and the streets are relatively quiet. We pass the general store, the real estate office with its window full of listings we can't afford, the art gallery that only sells to people who summer here.
And then Jolie stops.
"Thea."
There's something in her voice that makes me look up.
And I see her.
Kimberly.
She's standing outside the general store, and she's everything I'm not—tall and blonde and polished in that way that suggests she was born knowing which fork to use at fancy dinners. She's wearing designer jeans and a white puffer jacket that somehow doesn't have a single
stain or scuff, and her hair is perfect even in the February wind.
She sees us. Smiles. Starts walking over.
"Hey!" Her voice is bright and friendly. "It’s been a while, isn’t it?”
“Um...yes.” I do my best to sound just as friendly even though I’m mostly confused. Kimberly has never given me the time of the day, so I’m not sure why she’s acting like we’re long-lost friends all of a sudden?
