“I’m sure he does,” Leo smirks. “But I have no idea about your life before you landed in New York. You’ve mentioned Stanford. You’ve mentioned you’re an only child. You mentioned the engagement.” He pauses, his gaze softening. “But other than that, there’s nothing. I don’t know about your family, or your friends back home, or the real reason you’re here.”
I take a long, slow sip of my wine, letting the tartness of it sit on my tongue.
I knew this was coming. I’ve been building a wall out of witty anecdotes and sarcastic diversions for weeks, but Leo Roussos is apparently an expert at finding the loose bricks. I wish I could have just left the past in a sealed box at the bottom of the East River, but Leo notices everything.
I don’t want him to look at me differently when he knows who my parents are. When he realizes how poorly I’ve treated them since I left. I don’t want to address the guilt that sits in the pit of my stomach every single day—this heavy, acidic thing that reminds me that despite my parents being absent, despite them being more interested in their careers than in me, they gave me everything. They gave me dressage lessons at an equestrian center in Malibu where Olympic riders trained. Tennis lessons with a coach who’d worked with Andre Agassi. French tutors who came to the house three times a week. Spanish tutors after that. Summers in the south of France, late springs in Italy, winters in Aspen. Holidays in Ireland, with Eileen. I had a credit card with no limit and a Stanford tuition that was paid before I even moved into the dorms. It was a life most people would kill for. They gave me everything.
And yet, they never actually gave me them.
I look down at the Scrabble board and I realize that sometimes, the most expensive things are the ones that leave you the poorest.
“You’re sad.”
He doesn’t ask it. He doesn’t frame it with a sympathetic tilt of the head or a tentative upward inflection. He just states it, like he’s reading a weather report or identifying a specific type of sedimentary rock.
I huff out a laugh. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You said earlier, when we were out with the tiny mermaid,” he says, his voice gentle, “that not everyone is blessed with good parents.” He traces the rim of his glass, his eyes fixed on the movement. “Did yours ever—” He stops, searches for a word that isn’t too heavy, and fails. “Did they hurt you?”
My eyes snap wide. The wine-haze clears for a second, replaced by a jolt of alarm. “Oh god, no. Nothing like that. They weren’t abusive. They just…weren’t there.”
Leo seems to slump with relief, his shoulders dropping.
I go to take another sip of wine, but my glass is a desert. I stare at the bottom of it, genuinely baffled. “Where did the wine go? Did I drink that?”
He laughs—a real one—and slides the bottle toward me.
I pour a splash that is definitely larger than what Emily Post would recommend and take a long, grateful swallow. I love this buzzy headspace—the way the sharp edges of the world start to melt, the way my internal filter is currently floating somewhere out in the Atlantic, the way Leo’s kitchen feels less likehiskitchen and more like justakitchen, a space we both happen to be occupying—no employer-employee dynamics, no rules. Just two people and a very persuasive Bordeaux.
“If I tell you something,” I say, leaning forward until I can smell the sandalwood on his skin, “you have to promise you won’t lose it.”
“I’m aware that if I say I can’t promise that, the vault stays closed,” he sighs, taking his own sip. “So, tell me. I’m braced for impact.”
I swirl the wine, watching the deep ruby liquid catch the light until it turns the color of a bruise. I close my eyes, take a breath of the cool kitchen air, and jump. “Graham Collier is my father.”
He chokes on his wine, a stray drop hitting the table, and sets his glass down. “No way!” he wheezes.
I nod, watching the shock ripple across his face.
“Graham Collier?TheGraham Collier?”
“That one.”
He stares at the wall for a second, his brain clearly scrolling through a cinematic history of the last thirty years. “Jesus. My dad and I used to love his movies growing up.Night Watch, The Courier,that one about the pilot—”
“Above the Clouds.”
“Right. God.” He shakes his head, a small, stunned laugh escaping him. “So that means your grandfather is…”
“Clive Collier.”
“Wow.” He takes another shaky sip of wine. “My mom used to have this huge crush on Clive Collier. It was the mustache. My dad tried to grow his out like that once but it wasn’t the same. It was like a caterpillar died on his face.”
I laugh, a genuine, bubbling thing that surprises me.
“I can’t even imagine,” he says, his gaze settling back on me, suddenly much more focused. “Growing up in that kind of…orbit.”
I stay quiet, tracing the Scrabble board.
