My temples tightened. “Okay.”
“Can you give me recommendations for a new comfort show?” He spun a wide, one-footed circle around me.
I stuck out my tongue. “Show-off. And why are we talking about comfort shows?”
“Two reasons. I’m trying to talk to you about something benign, because we’ve got loads of dramatic stuff to talk about that I don’t feel like talking about.”
I skated over a rock, the reverberation jolting up my spine. “What’s your second reason?”
“Show selections tell a lot about a person.”
I had to concentrate. I zipped my core muscles like a sweatshirt, bottom to top. “Oh, yeah?”
Light crept through Caleb’s eyes. “Definitely.”
“Great. Mine areFriendsorGrey’s Anatomyto fall asleep to. TheGreat British Baking Showis my background show.”
“A woman with entertainment classifications,” Caleb said, miming being impressed.
“Don’t be too impressed. Natalie’s areTrue Bloodfor sleep, andEmily in Parisfor background.”
We whizzed past a family in matching shades of clothing. A photographer shouted at them to pretend to laugh, and the little girl of the bunch burst into tears. “That’s... something.”
“She’s an enigma.”
“Guess so.” Caleb skated to a stand with four-dollar water bottles. He purchased two, and we sat on a bench.
“Four-dollar waters. My childhood self is throwing a fit. What are you, rich?” I teased, shaking the bottle he handed me.
“Incredibly.”
“What’s your comfort show?”
“Schitt’s Creek,” he said immediately.
“Good one.” I drank. The water slid down my throat, streamed into my stomach. I leaned against the bench and stretched my arms overhead. “Wanna know something delicious?”
“Always.”
“Even though he says he hates it, Wells’s isGlee.”
Caleb choked on his water. It spluttered over his shirt, joining dark sweat marks on dark fabric. “No,” he managed.
I smiled back, but my stomach sank. I’d crossed a line. In a family studies class in college, I’d learned that step one to breaking apart a relationship is confiding something about that person to someone to whom you could be attracted. That detail had clocked in my mind. “Swear,” I said now, softly, feeling wicked.
There on that bench, the roofline of Caleb’s museum visible beyond the changing tree line, it was easy to imagine a futurewith him in it. Caleb leaned against the bench, his arm sailing behind me. If he shifted it forward an inch, it would capture my shoulders.
I wanted to tip my head to rest on him. But even though Wells had betrayed me, the saying about two wrongs and no rights was like a pattern on my personal fabric. Besides, with the possible chance I could be recognized, photographed, it would be a problem. So I didn’t. I counted to ten in my head, deciding if I was going to say what I wanted to. “Wells wants to move,” I said.
Caleb stilled. “Back in together?” he asked. Was his voice thick? I couldn’t tell.
“No. Well, yes, but.” I paused. “To California.”
“You’re moving to California?” Disbelief etched into his tone.
I shook my head. “He mentioned it last night but brushed it off at my reaction.” But our October payment was due soon. Imight not be moving to California yet, but if things kept going, I might be getting married to my soulmate.
He inhaled, as if gearing up for a response, but two people walked by us. One wore a cardboard sign advertising CONTACT YOUR SOULMATE IN THE NEXT REALM. In a starchy collared shirt and with a deep-set frown, the other looked like she would be pictured on an oatmeal label if she hadn’t worked herself up into such a frenzy. A picture of piousness. They were separated by the full swath of the wide Central Park path, but they stalked one another warily, two lightning bolts down the railroad tracks.
