“I guess I’ll say it was mutual, but . . .”
“. . . it won’t stop them from blaming me and honestly, I get it. Who’d leave you?”
He adjusts his grip on the wheel and stares straight ahead, feeling her eyes on him. Fuck, how’d he let that slip out?
Thank God, they’re almost there. There’s a valet up ahead and an old-fashioned sign jutting out over the sidewalk proclaiming NUNZIATA’S FAMILY RESTAURANT in deep red letters to the street.
Paolo’s already inside at the bar when they walk in. He kisses Bianca hello on one cheek and then the other, like the suave-as-shit Italian he is, and then does the same to Xavier before hugging him tight. His mentor is just a little taller than Bianca, and his perpetual tan and twinkling blue eyes are the same as ever, even if there’s a little more salt in his salt-and-pepper hair than the last time Xavier saw him.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Bianca says, once they’re led to their table, “to put a face to the source this one cites in every paper he writes.”
Xavier scoffs. “Oh,nowit’s nice to meet him. Weren’t you the one lecturing me last semester that I wasn’t diversifying my sources enough?”
“Lecture is a strong word. I was concerned about the peer-review process,” she says, primly lowering her napkin to her lap.
“You just couldn’t come up with anything else to criticize. Admit it.”
“Never.”
“Oh, I like her,” Paolo interjects.
“Of course you do.”
Dinner is easy, almost comically so. Bianca charms Paolo and has the older man eating out of the palm of her hand by the time their drink orders arrive. And before Xavier knows it, embarrassing stories about his undergrad years are being revealed one by one, like the time one of the other students asked him to meet her out in the desert during the night and they got caught, literally with their pants down, when a sandstorm was approaching and no one could find them in their tents.
And she’s laughing that throaty laugh, the one he loves so much it actually makes his chest ache.
“I’ll be right back,” she says when their dinner plates are cleared away.
She stands from the table and takes her purse with her, letting her hand linger on his shoulder for a moment before walking toward the ladies’ room.
“So, Dr Byrne,” Paolo says, grinning at him from over the rim of his wineglass, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief from across the table. “Engaged? I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Xavier says and takes a long sip from his own glass.
“Have they? I believe you once told me that marriage is an archaic institution created to . . . what was it? Keep the populace exhausted and broke.”
“I have no recollection of those words,” he says, lying through his teeth.
“Bullshit. We were drunk, but not that drunk, and I agreed with you, if you remember correctly.”
“Things change. People change.”
“Do they?”
“When they want to, when something makes them want to.”
“And Bianca changed you?”
“Fundamentally, down to the marrow.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Elephant in the room then, we can’t wait to get you out to Athens. Any chance you’d be able to fly out early? We’d put you up, of course. You’d be able to dive right in, see what’s happening on the ground, get familiar with the local landscape before the real fight starts.”
“One hell of a fight we’re taking on. The odds we win?”
