Curious, I push a little further.“Why were you looking us up?”My heart lifts at the thought that she was curious enough to do an online search.
“Just to ...”She coughs lightly.“Just to see what you all looked like now.”
“When did you look?”
She stops eating, pauses a few seconds.“Why the million questions?”
She’s asking me that?Because it’s important to me.Because if she looked today, it would have been about Dex.Curiosity.Context.But if she looked before … “When did you look, Maya?”
“A … a few weeks ago, maybe.”She keeps her eyes on the carton.
I feel better.A quiet, foolish hope unfurls in my chest.Maybe she wanted to know what I was up to.Whether I was single or not.She’s admitted to being curious enough about me, about us, the Knight family, to look us up on her own.It matters to me.“Then you must also know about Jett and Cari?”
“Not really.”She shakes her head, cheeks turning pink.This woman can’t lie to save her life.“I don’t make a habit of looking up the Knights.”
“Of course not.Why would you?”I say, sarcastically, biting into a spring roll.“You want to know about Jett,” I remark, wiping my mouth with a napkin.
“Is he still always convinced he’s the smartest person in the room?”
“Very much so.”
She hesitates, then pushes.“And Cari?Tell me about her.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.Anything.”
It feels like the old days when we’d talk about all sorts of things.I’d tell her about my brothers—Jett’s temper, Dex’s recklessness, and my father’s quiet authority.How he didn’t need to raise his voice to be listened to, and how everyone fell into line the moment he appeared.She’d give me all the gossip about the house staff and the goings on there, then she’d swear me to secrecy, and beg me to never tell anyone.She was afraid of getting her mom in trouble.I would never have done anything to hurt her.
“Jett got together with his personal assistant.”
“Oh!”A string of noodles hangs suspended between her chopsticks.
“Cari’s lovely,” I say.“I honestly think she’s the right person for Jett.She’s younger than him, by about a decade, and he’s a single dad.”
Maya’s eyebrows shoot up.“That’s a big age gap.”
I think about that.I don’t really notice the age gap because Cari is so wise, and she’s suffered so much in her young life that she comes across as sensible, and grounded.Wise beyond her years.“She’s good for him.She’s exactly who he needed.”
“He’s a single dad, you say?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
I hesitate.“You really want to know?”
She nods, looking more serious now, so I tell her about Jett’s wife and what happened.
“That’s awful.I’m so sorry.”
“It’s been tough for him, but meeting Cari has been the best thing to happen to him in a long time.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
“It’s been tough.I thought it would get easier with time, after what happened to Mom, and then growing up with the Italian Knights.”
“The Italian Knights?”
