“Her name is Lucky.”
He chuckled, a low rumble. “And she’s missing an eye?”
I shrugged. “She’s lucky I have a weakness for one-eyed cats.”
We sat in silence for what felt like eons but had to have been a minute at most. He stroked the cat with his free hand, and she started to purr.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I answered.
“I guess you’re wondering why I’m over here.”
“Kinda.”
I could be reasonably sure that he’d accepted my apology by virtue of his presence. Maybe. Hopefully.
Finally, he spoke. “I wanted to apologize, too. For losing my temper last week.”
Wait. What? Was this a man on my couch apologizing to me? For the second time in a month? What was this strange new world?
“Thank you,” I said. “And I really am sorry for my part. I’m not used to getting much attention to my videos.”
“No, seriously. You were right. You did ask, and I did have my contact information on LinkedIn. Must’ve forgotten all about it in the stress of the move.”
“Oh.”
“Thing is ...” He paused to take a sip of his drink. “When I said I didn’t want to date, I was only telling half the truth.”
“Oh?” Confusion washed over me. What did this have to do with anything?
“I, well, I’d really like to date you.”
I sucked in a breath, but I felt lightheaded nonetheless. “Me?”
He put his drink down on the coffee table. “I know. It’s inappropriate and too soon—”
“It’s not that. It’s—”
“You’re the first person I’ve even thought about like that since Claire, that’s my wife”—he paused, and a split-second of anguish flashed in his eyes—“since she died so suddenly. I promised myself that I would never again hold on to words I’d regret not saying. You are just ... Oh God. Now I’ve made things hopelessly weird. I’ll go.”
He shifted Lucky to the couch—gently—and started to stand, but I put my hand on his arm. “No, wait.”
“You’re not ...?” He left the sentence unfinished, and I couldn’t tell what he wanted to add to his question:offended, incredulous, angry?
“I’m just surprised.”
“Surprised? Why?” he asked as he sat back down.
“Well, because I’m me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s like the banana bread I made the other day.”
He tilted his head to one side, and I just knew he had to be reconsidering everything he’d previously said because I’d brought banana bread into the conversation for no discernible reason. But there was nothing to do now but plow forward. “When Mitch left me, I looked at these bananas at the end of the counter. They were bruised and blackened and dried up. I thought to myself, ‘I am those bananas.’”
“Vivian!”
