“Malbec.”
Of course he had a Malbec, my favorite. “Yes, please.”
The first thing Malone did upon entering my apartment was scoop up my kitten as though he’d never seen a kitten before. The second was to study the framed puzzle piece on the wall.
“Uh . . . Stark?”
“Yes?” I asked from the kitchen, where I was searching for the corkscrew.
“Why do you have a single puzzle piece on the wall?”
Looking at the tiny piece surrounded by a thick navy mat made me smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes. That’s why I asked.” He scratched underneath the kitten’s chin, and she looked up at him with devotion.
“After you tell me your story, maybe I’ll tell you one of mine.”
Later, we sat at my small but sturdy Ikea table, full of pizza and warmly toasty from our wine. The kitten lay nestled in the crook of Malone’s arm, sleeping without a care in the world.
“You promised me a story, I believe.”
He sighed. “That I did.”
He frowned at my puzzle piece, the only relief to unrelenting beige walls, but I could tell he was gathering his thoughts rather than crafting a lie. It felt as though he were deciding how much to share.
Feeling’s mutual, Malone.
“Remember when you told me you’d just got out of a long relationship?” he finally asked.
“Yeah.”
“Same.”
I had a million questions, but the moment felt delicate. One misstep, and I might not learn more about Malone, and I wanted—nay, needed—to hear his side of the story.
For professional reasons, clearly.
He took a deep breath and then turned his unique eyes on me. “One day, out of nowhere, she told me she couldn’t be with me anymore. Said she couldn’t stand to look at my mismatched eyes.”
Bile surged up my throat. How could Trista say such a thing to him!
Maybe my bullshit detector was irrevocably broken after all.
Maybe I was wrong about Trista, and she’d lied to me about the side chick. Now she wanted me to torment this man because his beautifully unique eyes didn’t “match”?
Anger took up all the space in my brain, to the point that I almost missed what he said next: “So she gave me back the engagement ring. Said she didn’t want to risk having children who had different-colored eyes.”
Wait. The side chick was the long-term relationship?
And just like that I was firmly Team Trista again, but my thoughts swirled.
He looked at me expectantly.
“Malone, that’s horrible.”
He shrugged. “Better to find out before children were involved.”
As if he didn’t have children in hismarriage.
