“So you’ll remember when Julia Roberts says that the men she dates go to sleep with the character she plays, and they wake up with the real person. That’s almost what it felt like to win. That night was... a circus. It was surreal. But I still had to get up the next morning, shave, make coffee, take my kid to school. Figure out what to work on next, what will actually make me happy, because expecting to reach that level of recognition a second time is fucking insanity. And even if I did... what would it mean, what would it change?” He runs a hand over his face, and I catcha glimpse of aggrieved exhaustion. “Anyway, I just happened to have a very nice decorative object on my bookshelf while I did those things.”
“Ah. So that’s where you keep it.”
“A less creative choice than Kate Winslet. She keeps a few in her bathroom.”
I put a hand on his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. I can’t seem to help myself. “One day, you, too, will have so many Oscars that you’ll have no choice but to put some above your toilet.”
He knocks his knee into mine, letting it linger there for a few seconds. My body instinctively remembers the weight of his, the singular way we align together. I inch closer to him and catch another whiff of his skin—it’s warm and musky, with the barest hint of white flowers.This must be the hotel body wash, I think, and then I’m assaulted with an image of him in the shower—
“I appreciate your belief in me,” Reid says, bringing me back to our bench. “But I’ve made peace with the fact that I don’t need that to happen again. In a lot of ways, the best thing that award did for me was free me up from the pressure to prove myself. Now I can just try to make good stuff. Whatever that means these days.” He shrugs. “Besides, stepping on Cate Blanchett’s train on the red carpet once was enough.”
I inhale sharply. “You didn’t.”
“I sure did. She gave me this look likeI’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.” He shakes his head. “I will see that look on my deathbed.”
I laugh. “That thing you were saying about compartmentalizing—I know how you feel. Since my divorce, I think I’ve kept my world pretty small. Funneling all my energy into Emme. Taking on projects that pay the bills but don’t really challenge me creatively. Focusing on being high functioning. Protecting myself from pain but also any real shot at happiness.”
“About that divorce.” Reid picks a piece of lint off the knee of my pants. “I’m sensing there’s a bigger story there.”
Usually I would shrink away from answering, allowing myself all the excuses: It’s boring. It hurts too much. It’s in a past I deeply regret. But Reid was honest with me, and even with my parents, despite how hard it clearly was for him to share. The least I can do is return the trust. Iwantto do that for him. I take a deep breath.
“So, everything you need to know about James and me, you can probably learn from our wedding,” I start. “It was this big, lavish affair that somehow snowballed from a city hall ceremony to a two-hundred-person blowout. James and I only danced together once, during our first dance—”
“What was the song?”
“Sade’s ‘By Your Side.’”
“Ironic.”
“Oh, you don’t even know. I barely saw him the rest of the evening.”
He asks,What could he have possibly been doing?with his brows.
I shrug. “Schmoozing. I had to tug at his coattails to get his attention.”
“Tails, huh?”
“It was Tavern on the Green in 1998.”
“What’d you wear?”
When I eye him thoughtfully, curious about his interest in the minute details of one of my more haunted memories, he just shrugs. “I’m a visual learner,” he explains.
Still, I choose to take this curiosity personally. “An ivory silk slip dress, cut on the bias. Buttons running down the back. We all wanted to be Carolyn Bessette back then.” I sigh, remembering the way the fabric flowed over my hips like cool water. “That was the one decision I got to make.”
I feel Reid’s eyes skim over me. “I wish I’d seen you in that.”
My skin heats underneath his gaze. “You can, actually. I kept the dress, chopped the train, and dyed it black. It was too beautiful to give away.”
“You do look good in silk. I recall.”
When I look at him again, he seems... bashful. An expression I may have seen on him as a twenty-two-year-old, but not as a full-blown adult. It’s adorable.
“You recall me in silk?” My voice is so quiet, I wonder if I’ll have to repeat myself.
“That dress is seared into my memory, Lili.”
We’re sitting close enough that I can see the steady pulse of his heartbeat in his neck. It would be so easy to move toward that spot—the spot that once felt like a safe harbor. It would be so easy to graze my lips over that spot, to capture that pulse in my mouth.
