"Eight years. Since the divorce."
"And you've been... alone? The whole time?"
"I date occasionally. Nothing serious."
"Define occasionally."
"Once or twice a year. Dinner. Polite conversation. Mutual acknowledgment that neither of us is interested in pursuing further." He drained the pasta. "And… we part ways."
"So… a booty call?"
"I hate that word."
"What would you call it?" I asked. "When you invite a woman over to your museum-house, have sex, and then call her an Uber? Sounds like a booty call to me."
He chuckled with self-deprecation, exhaling in defeat. "Okay, I guess that's what it's called. I never said I was a monk. Besides, I think I should get points for being honest. I don't have time for dating."
"That's a cop-out."
"It's the truth."
"It's a cop-out disguised as truth." I swung my legs against his cabinets, enjoying the way he winced at the scuffing. "You have time. You just don't make time. There's adifference."
"Thank you for the unsolicited analysis."
"You're welcome. I also accept payment in pasta."
He plated the food—carbonara, from the look of it, and my stomach growled in anticipation—and handed me a bowl. We ate at his kitchen island, perched on stools, and I tried not to moan at how good the food was because his ego was already bloated enough.
"Okay, this is annoyingly delicious," I admitted, unable to help myself.
"I'm adequate in the kitchen."
"This is not adequate. This is 'you could have been a chef if architecture hadn't worked out.'" I twirled more pasta onto my fork. "Where'd you learn?"
"My mother. She believed everyone should be able to feed themselves."
"Smart woman."
"She was."
Was. Past tense. I didn't push, and he didn't offer more. We ate in comfortable silence for a while, the city glittering through his windows, the strangeness of the situation settling into something almost normal.
"Can I ask you a question?" I said.
"You're going to regardless of my answer."
"True. But I'm being polite." I set down my fork. "Why did your marriage end? You've mentioned the divorce, the distance with Elena, but you've never actually said what happened."
He was quiet for a long moment. I watched him decide whether to deflect, then watched him decide against it.
"I was never there," he said. "Not physically absent—I came home, I attended events, I showed up to parent-teacher conferences. But I wasn't present. My mind was always on the next project, the next client, the next problem to solve." He stared at his pasta as if it held answers. "Jessica asked me once if I'd notice if she and Elena moved out. I laughed. Thought she was joking."
"She wasn't."
"She wasn't. And a year later, she proved it. Took Elena to California. Filed for divorce. Told me I could have the marriage or the career, and I'd already made my choice." He looked up, meeting my eyes. "She was right. I'd been choosing the career for years. I just hadn't admitted it."
"And Elena?"
