Too late.
He’d moved on.
What did I expect? We hadn’t seen each other for months. People say they’re going to stay together, but feelings change.
A knock on the door made me jump. Frida barked.
“Jane Marlow? I’m coming in,” Fen said as he cracked the restroom door open. “Everyone best be decent in there. You too, Frida. Calm down—it’s me. Here.”
He handed Frida something that she immediately snatched up and took around to the other side of me as I struggled to get up and fell on my ass.
Lovely.
“Ugh,” I moaned, trying to stop crying. “Go away. You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“It’s an emergency. I’m not a peeper.”
I calmed down a little and wiped my eyes, looking down at Frida. “What did you give her?”
“Cheesy dog biscuit,” he said, leaning back against the door. “They give them away at the counter if you ask for them.”
I made a face. “I’ve been coming here every weekend for two months and no one told me.”
“How did you know Grandma Mina’s favorite bakery?”
His grandmother had told me about it when I met her at the villa, while his father was recovering from surgery. But I didn’t want to tell him that. So I just sloppily pushed myself up to my feet, swatting away his hand when he tried to help me, and then busied myself washing my hands in the sink. “I think the girl matters more.”
“Frida?”
“The girl! Your new girl,” I said, soaping up my hands frantically. “Just go on and tell me who she is so we can get it over with, and I can go back to my life. Because I was fine until you walked in here.”
He snorted. “Oh, you were?”
I splashed water from the sink at him, and he moved to the side.
“You were never mean,” I said. “I mean, fine—I get it. You’ve moved on. But you were nevermean.” I turned off the water and pulled too many paper towels from the holder on the wall.
“I can’t take it anymore,” he shouted, throwing up his hands.
“Me either!” I shouted back. “Just go!”
He got in my face. “That’s Emily.”
“I don’t care. Move.”
“My cousin,” he enunciated.
I stopped. Looked up at him. And,oh, I felt the burn coming. Neck. Ears. Cheeks. The works. “Your cousin?”
“You met each other in the villa the same night you met Grandma Mina, but neither of you seems to remember.”
“Your cousin,” I repeated, wishing I could erase the last few minutes of my life.
“More like a buffer, in case things went fubar.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was so embarrassed, I was afraid to ask.
He tilted his head sideways until he hooked my gaze. “I used her as a buffer because I came here today to find you. I knew from your extravagant dessert photos online that you came here every Saturday morning, but I’ve been sitting at the coffee shop across the street for the last hour and a half, waiting for you to show up.”
