He gives me a look. “If I wanted the PR answer, I’d text Bennett. How are you, really?”
What does he want me to say? That every time Audrey looks through me, it feels like being deleted.
He breaks, scatters the balls, sinks a stripe with a clack. I watch the spin, my own brain retreating into calculations, safe. “I’m not sure she’s really back,” I say. “The real Audrey. The one I remember.”
Dominic steadies himself with the cue, lining up his next shot. “What, you think Sweden swapped her out with a pod person?”
“No. I just—” Words fail, as usual. “I think I broke something important. It’s my fault she left in the first place, and now she’s here and I don’t know how to even?—”
He shoots, misses, curses softly. “You’re giving yourself too much credit.” He turns to me. “She went to Sweden because she wanted to, not because of you. That’s what smart people do, right? They chase the next big thing. They don’t let feelings run their entire show.”
“No, Dom. It was me. I may not have all your emotional intelligence, but I know how to compute a causal chain. I put my hand on her face instead of kissing her. She fled the country.”
He’s silent for a long time, just eyeing the table. “Maybe you did hurt her,” he says finally. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t fix it.”
I almost laugh. “You ever try to un-break eggs?”
He shrugs, taking another shot. “I’ve picked shells out of a few omelets in my day.” He sinks the ball, then adds, “Terrible metaphor, by the way. Audrey’s not an omelet. Or a cracked egg. She’s a whole-ass human who’s pissed at you. Big difference.”
“You’re right. This is—” I gesture vaguely at the booth where Audrey is sitting, where she’s been carefully not looking at me allnight. “I don’t even know what this is. But I know I can’t fix it without explaining. And I can’t explain without?—”
“Without what?”
I don’t answer. Because the end of that sentence iswithout her finding out what I really am.And I’m not ready to say that out loud, even to Dominic.
I pocket a ball, and it’s easy now that I’ve figured out the angles. “I don’t think she wants it fixed. She said there’s nothing complicated between us.”
Dominic straightens with a snort. “She’s angry. And she’s lying, which is even better.” He leans in. “You know what most people do when someone hurts them?”
“Move to Sweden?”
“They give up and build a bunker. Or they run the same problem in a loop, like you do. But Audrey? She’s got the fighter gene. She’s going to give you hell every day until she gets an answer she likes.”
“Or until she proves to herself she doesn’t care.” I set up for a tricky bank shot, but the angle’s off. The ball rolls uselessly along the rail. Just like every conversation I’ve had with her today.
Dominic whistles. “You’re not listening. You don’t get over people that quickly. Not the ones that matter.”
“You’ve dated every person within a ten-mile radius. I’m not sure you know what the ones-that-matter category means.” I regret it right away and wince, ready to apologize.
But Dominic just grins, unbothered. “Probably true. But that means I know a rebound from a grudge match, and she’s not here to rebound.” He lets his gaze settle on where she’s now standing at the edge of the booth, saying something to Layla and Serena as she gestures toward the bar. “Now’s your chance. Go talk to her.”
I follow his line of sight, watching her approach the bartender with a smile. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Probably. But you’re going to do it, anyway. Might as well be now, when you’ve got some liquid courage.”
“I don’t have liquid courage. I have liquid poor decision-making.”
“Same thing.” He gestures toward the bar. “Go. I’ll cover for you.”
“Cover for me, how? Everyone can see us.”
“I’ll create a distraction. Start a fight. Knock over a table. Something dramatic.”
“Please don’t.”
“Then go talk to her before I do something we’ll both regret.”
I set down my pool cue. Audrey is still at the bar, waiting for her drink, her back to me. The line of her shoulders. The way the dim light catches her hair.
