We eat. She talks about her family, her two younger brothers out in Phoenix, and her mother who calls her every Sunday. She says it like it’s a complaint, but the warmth underneath it is obvious.
Somewhere in the middle of her speaking, I zone out thinking about Lyla. About the space between us since coming back to the villa. About how I’d rather fill that space right now than be here.
Valerie is kind, but she’s barking up the wrong tree.
I pick up my glass.
“Can I ask you something?” Valerie says.
“Sure.”
“Why are you here?” She says it without accusation, genuine curiosity rather than prying. “Everyone around here has a different idea, and I’d rather ask the source. You don’t come off as the typical TV personality.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
She sobers. “You’re here for Lyla, aren’t you?”
I nod.
She tilts her head, processing—fitting it into whatever version of me she’s been constructing.
“Do you think she wants you back?”
The candle between us shivers once.
“The question isn’t does she. It’s whether she will take me back.”
“That’s confident,” she observes. “What makes you think that?”
“Let’s just say Lyla and I go way back.”
She scoffs. “You and everyone else here.”
Her smile falters, softening into something more polite. I can see her rearranging something internally. She reaches for the wine bottle and tops off my glass, then hers, without saying anything else.
By the time the plates are cleared, the sky is fully dark. Stars come through, close and heavy, the way they only get out here, away from everything. Valerie turns her face up to look at them.
“This part I’ll miss,” she speaks softly. “The sky.”
“Yeah.”
She looks back down. Looks at me. There’s a shift in her expression, as though she’s decided something.
She then stands and leans across the corner of the table. I recognize what she’s trying to do.
I’m quick to pull back, one hand gentle at her shoulder.
My lips land at her cheekbone—brief, unambiguous. A press. Nothing more. The kind of kiss you give a sibling, not a potential significant other.
Her eyes open. She’s perfectly still for a moment, as if processing the message I’m giving her.
Then she blinks and settles back into her chair. A soft exhale through her nose.
“Oh,” she says, heat crawling up her face. “You weren’t kidding about Lyla.”
“Valerie.”
“No, it’s—” She shakes her head, a small rueful curve at the corner of her mouth. Not angry. Just recalibrating. “I read that wrong.”
