Elliot liked how he said that: that she was working through some things. Weren’t they all? But then he caught himself liking Carter and felt like he was walking into a trap. Carter stepped back into the kitchen and returned with two Amstels. He gestured to the teak chairs and table.
“I suppose you’re here because I’m on Birdie’s list,” he said, getting straight to the point.
“You’ve seen the news?” Elliot also sat up straighter, put on his reporter voice.Damn you, Birdie, he did have a TV reporter voice.
“I think you’d have to be a mole person not to have seen the news,” Carter said. “And actually, they’ve probably seen it too. Poor Bird.”
“Well, this was her idea,” Elliot replied. “So she knew what she was getting into.”
Carter chewed on this for a beat. “I suppose that’s true, but the Birdie I knew tended to think that she could always rewrite her story, and maybe she thinks—or thought—she could do the same here. With that prick.”
“Ian?”
“Oh god, no, not him. Have you ever eaten at his restaurant? He is a magician. Best mussels on the planet.”
Elliot laughed despite himself. Muscles. Mussels. Hearing it objectively, he could see how Birdie had gotten it wrong.Sweetdreams are made of cheese.He wished very much that she were here doing this beside him, and not just because he thought he might fall in love with Carter if he lingered too long. The man was that amiable.
“Ah. You mean Sebastian Carol,” Elliot said. “He is indeed a prick.”
Carter started to say something but stopped himself. He raised two fingers to his lips as if caught in a thought. Elliot took it as an opportunity.
“So was it you?”
That smile again. Dammit. A slight shake of his head. “I’ve gotten a few texts asking the same thing today.”
“That is not an answer to the question,” Elliot said, irked that he was dodging, irked that it annoyed him that Carter’s friends were raising the same suspicions. Birdie was meant to behis. The clarity of that idea alarmed him, so he corrected himself: no, that was just a narrative he’d spent his childhood buying into. They’d had their shot. One of them, maybe him, maybe her, had blown it.
“People have long memories when you date the most famous woman on the planet,” Carter said.
“She’s not the most famous woman on the planet. Think of Michelle Obama. Oprah. Taylor Swift.”
“Well, no one thinks I’ve dated Michelle Obama.” Carter grinned again, and his whole face danced with joy. “But that would be a dream.”
Elliot laughed again in spite of himself. If he weren’t still stuck on Birdie in the RV in his button-down, he’d probably be rooting for Carter too.
“But you still haven’t answered the question. Did you send her an unsigned love letter?”
It was at this exact moment that Lucy launched out of the pooland careened right toward Elliot, as if she could sense that her owner needed a moment to gather himself. Carter jumped to his feet and grabbed a towel from the other side of the patio, but not before Lucy could shake herself off violently, coating Elliot in damp doggy pool water.
“Sorry.” Carter laughed, handing him the towel. “Indoctrination by Lucy.”
“And a perfect excuse to keep me in suspense,” Elliot said, dancing his voice between official reporter and nice guy who wasn’t trying to prod. (He was, but he tried to modulate his tone accordingly.)
“I’ve never been interested in that fame stuff,” Carter said, like he was offering an explanation. “In my experience, fame is like food left out on the counter a day too long.”
“Rotting? Attractive to fruit flies?”
There it was again, the deep bellow of a laugh. Elliot thought he might crater from envy. This man who was so comfortable in himself, so content with his damp feral dog and a beer. “Something like that,” he said. “More like: gets old fast, then it starts to stink.”
“I feel like I’m missing something here, like there are parts of the story we’re skipping right over,” Elliot said. He’d patted himself off by now, but Lucy was plunked by his feet and her wet dog smell was curdling his stomach. Or it could have been his jealousy.
Carter hummed under his breath, taking his time, mulling his answer. “I didn’t write her a letter,” he said finally. “I’m engaged.”
“Oh,” Elliot said, and was surprised at the relief that flooded over him. “Congratulations.”
“But even before then,” Carter said. “I love Birdie, she’s the greatest, but...” He drifted and stared over Elliot’s shoulder, thenstood to get an errant tennis ball in the corner of the yard. “Lucy!” he called, and the dog was up with a start, then threw herself back into the pool to retrieve the ball. Elliot’s phone buzzed in his pocket at the same time she landed with a tidal-wave splash, which served as an excuse to step inside and slide the glass door closed. As it was, he likely reeked from Lucy’s first dousing; he wasn’t going to sit around and wait for an encore.
“Yeah?” he asked. This was how he and Mona often greeted each other. A term of both endearment and sibling annoyance. He glanced around Carter’s kitchen. High-end appliances, a fancy espresso machine, a KitchenAid mixer that looked new and was probably an engagement present. Elliot had flitted through enough registries to know one when he saw one.
