They sat in silence for several minutes. Gil broke it. “I have all your letters from when we were kids. I kept them.”
“I have all yours too. From when we were kids and the ones I didn’t see until it was far too late.”
“I also have letters that I never sent you.”
She pulled back so she could see his face. “What?”
“My therapist thought I should write out what I was feeling and thinking. He told me to pick someone I could write to and be honest with, but that I would never actually send the letters. I chose you.”
Ivy had rarely been rendered speechless, but that did it. She could not form a single word.
Gil’s hands hadn’t left her face, and his thumbs continued to stroke her cheeks. “What if we bought plane tickets and left town for a month? We could hide on a beach, or maybe in a mountain cabin with a fireplace? Do you think anyone would notice?”
He spoke so seriously, it took her a few seconds longer than it should have to realize he was joking. No. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t joking. He did want that. He also knew they couldn’t have it.
“I like the mountain and fireplace idea the best.” She was stillwhispering. “Although, I’ve never lived in a house with a fireplace. Do you know how to start a fire?”
“I do.”
“Oh.” Why did she think they might not be talking about fireplaces anymore?
Gil’s hands slid from her face and down her left shoulder but carefully jumped over her injured right shoulder, and now his right hand was tangled with her left fingers while his left hand was pressed into the swing at her side. “You slept for a while. Are you hungry?”
She recognized this for what it was. Gil was pulling them out of the deep mire of their complicated past. The conversation was over. The truth was out. They now knew what had happened that broke them apart, but what they were going to be in the future was uncertain. And that wasn’t going to change tonight. They both needed time to process the past and think through what they wanted for the future.
Once she gave the idea a few seconds of brain activity, she had to admit she was hungry. She nodded, and Gil’s face relaxed into a smile that had been cute when he was little but had grown into something breath stealing and heart racing in its beauty.
“Finally. Something I can fix.” He stood and pulled her up beside him. “How do you feel about pasta?”
“I love pasta.”
“Excellent.” He led them back into the house. She went to freshen up while he proceeded to the kitchen, and that’s where she found him twenty minutes and a full refresh on her makeup later.
“What are you making?” She slid onto the stool she’d occupied at breakfast.
“Baked ziti. That work for you?” The room smelled of garlic, basil, and oregano. Two mason jars rested in the sink with theremains of what might have been homemade tomato sauce clinging to the glass walls.
“Sounds great.”
Their conversation was stilted at first, but it didn’t take long for it to slide into the easy rapport they had always shared. Gil prepped the ziti and slid it into the oven, then whipped up a vinaigrette, tossed a salad, and made garlic bread from the loaves they’d used at breakfast. Gil wasn’t giving her intense looks. There were no heavy pauses filled with deep meaning. It was casual. Easy. Two old friends reconnecting over dinner.
It was exactly what she needed. Two hours later, Ivy finally got up the nerve to ask the other questions she needed answers to. “Gil?”
“Hmm?” he asked from the opposite end of the sofa where they were sitting.
“I think we need to talk.”
His eyes widened. “Again?”
She tried to reassure him with a smile. “Not about that.”
He waved a hand in her direction, indicating she should proceed. It looked casual, but the way his face hardened and his eyes narrowed, she knew he wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he was trying to appear.
“I need to know what’s happening.” Once she started talking, all her questions from the weekend tumbled out of her. “I need to know if I can go to work tomorrow. When I can go home. If I need to do something different with my security system or hire a bodyguard. I don’t want to put my staff at risk, but this is a big week for us. I’m making a pitch on Wednesday for an enormous grant. The pitch session is by invitation, and only six of us were invited. It’s a big deal, and I need to be on my A game. And I’m not sure what’s happening with my case.”
Gil didn’t make any effort to stop the words, and she couldn’t rein them in. They kept coming.
“This weekend, you, Emily, your friends—I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know, but it feels like I’ve been in a bubble since you walked into my house on Friday night. Your idea of leaving town is appealing, but since it isn’t an option, I need to make decisions about tomorrow and the rest of the week. In order for me to do that, I need you to explain everything to me so I can choose wisely.”
