“I’ve carried you. How is it you weigh so little when you clearly eat so much?” I teased, slipping my hand down her arm to curl around her side so I could pinch the side of her belly.
She squirmed. “Stop that! I surf for hours every week, which always leaves me ravenous, and to be honest, I’m prone to skipping meals. With Miranda, working at a busy restaurant, and auditioning, sometimes I’m lucky to get in a protein bar.”
“We should discuss what you want to do for Miranda,” I said, now that she had been brought up. I did not like to hear that she didn’t have time to take care of herself. “I had Chaucer look into a few places in the area that come highly recommended. We wouldn’t spare any cost.”
She nibbled on the corner of one pink lip. “I know it needs to be discussed. It’s just…I feel so guilty about putting her away in some home where she won’t know anyone. I’ve read so much about how it’s beneficial for people with neurodegenerative diseases to be around the things and people they know. I promised her I wouldn’t abandon her like everyone else in her life has.”
It had been a long time since I was in a position to give anyone comfort, but Linnea’s lack of physical boundaries made it easier. I curled her tighter into my side and kissed her temple. She smelled of desert roses and ocean salt, an undercurrent of spice like pink peppercorns and bergamot that made me want to linger too close until I could decipher each complicated note.
“Then we will leave her in her home until it’s necessary she requires more care, but Linnea, I must insist on hiring proper nurses. The onus has been on you far too long. You’re a twenty-six-year-old woman with her life ahead of her. It’s time to focus on the things you dream of accomplishing.”
She made a dreamy sound, her gaze glazing as she imagined those possibilities.
Our order was called, forcing Linnea to leave my side to retrieve the grease-stained cartoon of fried seafood. Wanting to stay close, I followed her, gathering the majority of the food myself before leading us outside toward the water, where ramshackle picnic tables sat. I took one side and was surprised, though maybe I shouldn’t have been, when Linnea sat on the same bench as me.
Slotting into my side, she arranged the food to her liking, lining up the tartar sauce and ketchup cups, squeezing lemon over the fried fish, and piling the malt vinegar packets beside me. When I raised a brow at the assumption, she grinned.
“We had fish and chips that day in Croyde,” she reminded me with a little shrug. “I remember you drenched the fries in so much vinegar they were soggy.”
“Hardly,” I scoffed, even as I ripped open the packets and began to upend them over a pile of chips.
She laughed, which was the goal.
What kind of magic did she have that, after a day of drama—kissing the man I’d pined over for years, crossing paths with my she-devil of an ex-wife—Linnea could make me feel light-hearted and grateful to be sitting on a splintering bench eating cheap fried food?
“Do you miss her?”
I wasn’t surprised by Linnea’s non-squitter because I was beginning to understand her. Instead of pressuring, she employed guerrilla warfare tactics—shock and awe—to get people to open up to her.
To stall for time, I took a bite of immaculately fried cod and allowed myself to enjoy the silken meat and crisp exterior. It was a deviation from the careful meal plan I had been implementing in the lead-up to my role of Anton Daventry, but with every day of silence that passed, it became clearer to me that even with Linnea at my side, the production was considering other options for their leading man.
I shoved the grim thought from my mind and savored the good food and good company the way Dr. Eng had suggested.
“Not particularly,” I said finally, looking at my empty ring finger. It had felt naked and wrong for a handful of years after our divorce, but now I was used to it.
Savannah had been an essential part of my life for so long that it took me a long time to realize she had been more pivotal to my career than to my personal life. We hadn’t trusted each other enough to let down our guards completely, even after five years of marriage.
It made me wonder if I’d ever been able to commit my heart fully into anyone else’s hands. Maybe I was just born and bred to be alone forever, condemned by the struggles I couldn’t seem to stop from defining me.
Linnea lifted her brows as she munched on a crab leg.
“It was lonely without her,” I admitted, then, because I owed it to her after what she had stumbled into that afternoon in the pantry, I added. “Without them.”
“The three of you lived together like a couple?” She held no judgement in her tone, just an airy curiosity.
“Yes,” I said, and it felt like lancing a wound to speak about it.
The hurt was a bright burst that softened into the dull throb of relief.
“For a time.”
“You missed him, though,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
It hurt to nod, but I did it anyway.
She knocked her shoulder into mine. “He didn’t want to leave. I remember that.” A pregnant pause I held my breath through. “Did you make him? It’s the only way I can see someone like Seb giving up.”
Ah, she knew our Italian well.
