I now know all of this. I have learned it the way you learn to navigate a kitchen that isn’t yours—carefully, with your hands always slightly raised, ready to apologize for spilling.
What I haven’t learned is how to stop loving Fox.
Wish I had.
See, that’s the part nobody warns you about.
They warn you about the family.
They warn you about the money, the gap in it, the way it shows up in the small moments—the way he tips without looking at the receipt, the way he books flights the same day he needs them, the casual, unthinking fluency of never having to count.
They warn you that men like Fox don’t end up with girls like Lucy Vidal from Antioch, not in any way that holds.
But nobody warns you that you’ll fall for him anyway. Completely. Without protection, just like that time when I got pregnant—just as stupid, just as sure you’ll be the exception.
We met on a Tuesday at Dina’s Diner on Gallatin Road—a neighborhood eatery started by Dina Caldwell, my best friend since seventh grade.
I have always considered Tuesdays to be the orphan day of the week, not close enough to the weekend to matter, not fresh enough to feel like a start. They’re also when I use the kitchen after closing to test recipes, which is what I was doing that night—working on acassouletI was hoping to make a regular on the menu.
It was nine-thirty at night.
Fox had been at the bar with colleagues, apparently the last of them to leave, and he’d wandered back through the open kitchen door. It was a warm night, and I had left it ajar.
He was both lost and curious, he told me later when he found me elbow-deep in duck confit and white beans.
“That smells illegal,” he murmured.
I should’ve been afraid to have a strange man wander into my kitchen. But I wasn’t.
I was intrigued by the unfairly handsome stranger—tall, dark-haired, with a jaw like an architectural decision. His suit was faintly wrinkled, his tie loosened. He wore a watch that I didn’t know at the time cost more than Dina’s yearly rent.
“It’scassoulet,” I told him.
“Very fancy.”
“Very not,” I retorted. “It’s country-style French cooking.”
“But we’re not in France,mon amie.” His eyes glinted with laughter. “Is it any good?”
“Oui,” I replied cheekily.
“May I try it?” he mused aloud.
I quirked an eyebrow. “It takes four hours minimum, and itwillchange your life.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” he challenged.
“Come back in three hours,” I countered.
He came back in one.
He watched me cook.
He talked.
He got me to talk to him.
By the time I gave him a bowl, he had already made me laugh numerous times.
