He looked at her for a long moment. He had more to say. He had quite a lot more to say, none of it useful, all of it true, and he looked at her steady face and her steady voice and decided, for once in his life, to leave it where it was.
"Goodnight," he said.
Elizabeth blinked. "It is eleven in the morning."
"I know what time it is." He picked up his coffee. "I meant for this evening. I hope your date goes well."
He walked out of the kitchen.
He went upstairs. He closed his bedroom door, fired up his MacBook, sat on his bed and looked at the quarterly projections that were still half finished on his screen and did not touch them.
We are not a family.
He had known that. He had known it before she said it. There was no need for a reminder that this was a practical arrangement between two adults who had made a promise.
He had known it. So why was he feeling a stab in his chest from the moment she reminded him?
Darcy had no answer to that. But it hurt to be told off like that. Perhaps, somewhere in the past week, he stopped feeling that Mia was the only reason why they were both in the same house together.
And that, Darcy thought, was the problem. That was precisely and entirely the problem. And he had no idea what to do about it except sit on his bed and look at numbers that meant nothing and wait for the day to become evening so that Elizabeth could go on her date and he could be alone in the house with the quiet and the ceiling and the very clear understanding of exactly where he stood.
TWELVE
THE DATE HAD BEEN DECENT.
That was the most honest thing Elizabeth could say about it. Decent. He was pleasant and well dressed and he had done his research, chosen a good restaurant, asked questions and listened to the answers. She had laughed twice at things he said. He had laughed more than that at things she said, which was either a good sign or a sign that he was trying very hard, and she had not been able to decide which.
His name was Daniel. He worked in publishing, which was interesting enough, and he had opinions about books, which was more than she could say for the last person she had been on a date with. He was considerate and attentive and by nine o clock she had understood, with the quiet clarity of someone who had been paying attention to themselves for long enough, that she was not going to fall in love with him.
She had not said this. He was trying too hard to be told that.
When he suggested a club — a place his friend had recommended, good music, just for an hour — she had said yes because the evening felt unfinished and because the alternative was going home and she had not been ready to go home yet. She was not sure what she had not been ready to face. She had not examined it too closely.
The music had been loud and the dance floor had been full and somewhere between the second song and the fifth shehad stopped thinking about anything at all. Not about Daniel. Not about the date. Not about Darcy's face that morning in the kitchen or him thinking they were family or the very precise way he had delivered goodnight at eleven in the morning. Not about images of his bare chest that played in her whenever he looked at her. Not about Charlotte or James. Not about any of it.
Just the music. Just moving. Just the particular mercy of a loud room that required nothing from you except to be in it.
She had not noticed the time.
By the time she looked at her phone it was twelve forty. Four missed calls on her screen. She turned to Daniel and told him it was time for her to leave. He offered to walk her out, and she let him.
Outside, she said she would take the subway, but he insisted on dropping her.
The drive was uneventful, aside from him asking whether she lived alone. She said she did. She did not have the energy to explain Mia—or the fact that she was living with her dangerously attractive ex.
Daniel said goodnight in the driveway. Elizabeth insisted there was no need for him to get out of the car.
He leaned in and stole a quick peck. Elizabeth did not mind.
She just needed to get inside.
The house on Hicks Street had its light on in the living room.
Elizabeth stood on the front step for a moment before entering the code and letting herself in.
***
He was on the sofa.
