“Wow.” She widened her eyes in mock surprise. “With that ringing endorsement, it’s a wonder we don’t all pack up and move to DC immediately.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have a smart mouth?”
“Moi?” Tessa’s French accent was flawless. Her fluttering hand at her throat and eye-batting added to the drama.
“Oui, oui, mademoiselle.” Zane exhausted his French vocabulary with that retort.
Tessa took a sip of her shake and stared at him.
He relented. “It’s fine. But it isn’t home.”
“I can see that. You made Raleigh home. You left behind a lot of friends here.”
“I did. And a larger sense of belonging that I don’t have in DC. But I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’m always traveling. I haven’t been home long enough to make my house into anything more than the place I sleep and do laundry.”
Tessa furrowed her brow. “You’ve unpacked, though.”
“Mostly.”
“Zane, I hate to have to remind you, but you didn’t have that much to begin with. How is it possible you’ve been there six months and haven’t unpacked?”
He dragged a fry through ketchup before responding. “There’s no real reason to.”
“But it’s your home.”
“I’m never there, so what does it matter? I have a bed. I have a TV. I have clothes. I sometimes have food in the fridge. I have coffee. So I’m good.”
“Do you have any pictures out?”
That stopped him. Because he did. But not any he was prepared to share with Tessa. “A few.”
“Larger than eight by ten?”
“No.”
“Zane! Have you done nothing? Do you have furniture? Towels?”
“You do realize that I’m a guy, right? I don’t care.”
Tessa shook her head. “That’s not true. You had all of that at your house here.”
She wasn’t wrong. Although, now that he thought about it, most of the homey aspects had been a result of Luke, Gil, or Tessa deciding he needed something and insisting he purchase it. But thanks to their prompting, he had put effort into his place. Nothing elaborate, but it’d had a few nice touches.
Until it burned to the ground.
“Tess, I haven’t had time to do anything more than sleep, eat, and run. When I’m there, the last thing I want to think about is whether the shower curtain matches the paint.”
“Zane, your home should be your safe space. The place you retreat to when life gets to be too much.” She dipped her French fry into her milkshake and nibbled the end of it. “I get that you’re a guy.” She gave him a very intense look, from head to, well, to as far as she could see before the table got in the way. “No doubt about it.”
Was she flirting with him? Before he could follow that up, she continued. “And I can understand being too busy to think about turning your place into a real home, but you need to. You’ll unwind and recharge so much better if your home is somewhere you want to be.”
He took a bite of his burger to give himself a few seconds to respond. He could be flippant. Or he could open up in the sameway she’d opened up to him earlier. “Home is a complicated thing for me, Tess.”
“I know.”
They’d discussed his childhood at length. Growing up, home wasn’t a safe space. It wasn’t a retreat. He never invited friends to his house because there was no telling what condition his mom would be in. He learned how to do laundry because that was the only way he had clean clothes. He learned how to make a grilled cheese sandwich from a friend’s mom, how to scramble eggs from another one. He ate a lot of canned food—ravioli and random canned meats—not a lot of veggies.
She nudged his plate. “Eat. It will get cold.”
