I shoot him one of my fake smiles. “I’m fine,” I lie. “Tell me about your sister. She sounds like a kindred spirit.”
He examines my face, no doubt seeing the lie, but he doesn’t call me on it or pry. “I have two younger sisters. Sarah and Esther. Sarah is the coffee nut. Esther loathes the stuff.”
“I’m surprised she wasn’t run out of the state.”
His lips twitch. “Me too. She only drinks tea. I used to stop by the tearooms in Pike Place Market once a month to stock up on her favorites. Now, she’s in Cornell, I ship supplies out every few months.”
His face lights up when speaking about his sisters, and warmth spreads across my chest. “You sound like a great big brother.”
He shrugs, looking contemplative as he drinks his coffee. “What about you?” he asks after another comfortable quiet interlude. “Any siblings?”
I shake my head. “It’s just me and my mom.”
Some indecipherable emotion flares momentarily in his eyes as we share a look.
I avert my gaze and drink my coffee. I’m grateful my love for coffee hasn’t abated along with my other taste buds. I have found it hard to enjoy food since the accident. Perhaps because so much of my relationship with Garrick was centered around food and wine. I loved cooking for him, but cooking holds zero appeal these days. Now I eat purely to sustain my body, but the only pleasure I derive from putting anything in my mouth is from coffee.
Coffee will forever be one of my great loves.
“Who were the cunts?” he asks after another bout of silence. “I’ll confess to being intrigued.”
I blink repeatedly until I remember. “No one worth mentioning,” I mumble, rubbing a tense spot between my brows. “I just had a bad day.” That’s not technically true. I had a very productive enjoyable day at work. It was after I left work that everything turned to shit.
He doesn’t speak for a few moments. “Sometimes, it helps to talk to a stranger. I’ve been told I’m a good listener.” He traces one slim finger around the rim of his cup. “If you need to vent, you can vent to me.”
“Who are you?” I blurt, not meaning to say it out loud. It’s more of a general question, not meant literally, but that’s how he computes it.
“My name is Greyson though most everyone calls me Beck.”
Another déjà vu moment rolls over me, and I work hard to evict the memory from my head. My brain is really doing a number on me today. “Why not Grey?”
“My middle name is Beckett. After Samuel Beckett. He was—”
“An Irish writer,” I supply before he can confirm it.
“Yes.” He offers me a fleeting smile, and I catch a glimpse of perfect white teeth. “My mom loved his books and his plays. He spent a lot of his life in France, and he wrote in both French and English. Mom grew up in France, and my grandparents still live there. Mom always called me Beckett. When my sisters were little, they could only say Beck, and I guess the name stuck.” Creases dent his smooth brow, and he scrubs a hand over his clean-shaven jawline as he stares into space. I didn’t miss how he spoke about his mother in the past tense, and I wonder if that’s why he is at the hospital.
Although I’m naturally nosy, I’m not going to ask.
He can volunteer the information if he likes, but I would never pry.
When I meet people I know, the first thing they ask me is how Garrick is. I know they mean well, and I love they are keeping him in their thoughts, but it’s stressful to repeat the same stale news over and over again. I hate the pitying looks and the platitudes.
It’s coming from a good place, but it’s soul destroying.
So, I will never put another person in a similar position, because I get it.
Sometimes, you want to speak about them, to help keep the memory alive.
Other times, you just can’t talk about it because it hurts far too much.
Beck clears his throat. “What about you? What’s your name?”
“I’m Stevie. Everyone just calls me Stevie.”
Except for Nana, my love, and his poisonous mother.
In recent times, I have often thought how ironic it is that Garrick calls me his sunshine when I turned out to be his darkness.
