When I get back to his table with my jacket and bag, Hayden’s put his computer away and moved his salad and water directly in front of himself. It’s not until I slide into my seat that I remember the dilemma. Our dilemma, Hayden’s and mine.
We can’t sit in cramped spaces like this without a great deal of careful arranging of our legs. “Sorry,” I say, my left knee bumping his and then finding itself tucked between both of his thighs, interlaced. “I think we’re too tall for this booth.”
“It’s not your fault,” he says. “I’m too tall for most booths. You should see me on an airplane.”
I laugh. “I’d love to. Next time you’re on one, send me a picture?”
“I don’t have your number,” he points out, which is not quite the same as asking for my number, but still sends a surprising and surprisingly pleasant zing down the front of my rib cage.
I could offer it to him. Normally, I probably would.
But I actually have no idea if he’s trying to set me up to offer it. With Theo, I can always tell what he wants. There’s a comfort in that.
“How’d your first day go?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “We’re not talking about Margaret Ives.”
“No, you’re not talking about her.” I lean forward and feel his legs tense slightly around mine. “I have no problem telling you that my first day was weird.”
“You shouldn’t be telling me this,” he says.
“Maybe not,” I allow, “but since we’ve both signed ironclad NDAs, I’m pretty sure you’re the only person I can tell about this. I think she lied to me.”
Hayden Anderson’s face might not have the full range of emotions that I’m accustomed to, but it turns out he can definitely show surprise.
And something else, like a quick flare of understanding, before he schools his face into neutrality again.
“Hayden,” I say, leaning even farther forward to peer intently into his eyes.
“Alice,” he replies, a bit stiff.
“What was that face for?” I ask.
He looks away, scratching his jaw.
“Oh, come on,” I say. “What if I promise not to use anything you give me?”
His eyes snap back to mine. In this warm lighting, they look almost gold. Like honey. He leans in closer too, his knee sliding in almost to my crotch in the process, the heat of him palpable against my bare thighs. “I’m not giving you anything,” he says.
“But she lied to you too,” I say. “Or you’re at least wondering if she did.”
Again, that lift in his brow and slackening of his mouth. Quickly, his features return to a scowl. “This is why I never go out with journalists.”
Another flush, this one much more intense, rockets through me. Is the implication that this counts as going out or is he just run-of-the-mill insulting me?
He’s rubbing his jaw again, his eyes distant, until the second they rebound to me, hyperfocused. He slumps back against his seat on a sigh. “There have been some…” He chooses his next words carefully. “Discrepancies I can’t account for yet.”
I frown. “Is she fucking with us?”
A server is walking past right then, and she slows when he lifts his chin in greeting toward her. “I think my friend wanted to order.”
Friend! That’s progress.
After a cursory look at the menu, I order a vegan hot dog and something called a Queen’s Park Swizzle.
“Anything else for you?” the server asks Hayden, and he shakes his head.
As soon as she disappears, he faces me again, hunching forward, his forearms resting on the table. “It is weird. That she suddenly wants to do this. I mean, why now?”
His gaze is sharp, meaningful. It takes me a second to figure out what he’s hinting at. I can tell he doesn’t want to say it, but he’s hoping I’ll guess anyway. Like this is a work-around to his “no sharing our Margaret Ives stuff” policy.
What would make someone suddenly consider a tell-all memoir when they’d been virtually in hiding for three decades? I can only think of two obvious reasons.
Maybe she’s dying. Or maybe…
“Memory problems?” I say.
Our server drops my drink off as she sweeps past us. I thank her and face Hayden again.
“Maybe I’m just seeing things that aren’t there.” He shrugs. “Ever since Len, I’ve been a little…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know, every time I visit my parents and one of them misplaces the remote, a little part of me is asking if it’s normal forgetfulness, or something else.”
He shakes his head again as if to ward off the thought.
“You were really close to him,” I say. “Len.” It’s not a question. Obviously Hayden was close to the man. He spent years with Len Stirling, with his family and friends. Of course they’d bonded. But somehow it hadn’t occurred to me how painful that must have been.
To form a bond with someone on the very precipice of them slipping away. His book hadn’t delved into the aftermath of Len’s death. Hayden was on the page, but only in small glimpses. He was good at writing more as a porthole than a narrating character.
But now I can see the Hayden who was really there. Who knew the man he was writing about. Loved him, probably.
“I’m not sure that’s what’s going on here,” he says suddenly, his tone distracted. “Most likely she just doesn’t trust us yet.”
He runs his fingertips thoughtfully over his mouth now. The motion distracts me. Hypnotizes me, really. I hadn’t noticed how attractive he was before. I’m not totally sure what it is that makes him so. He’s nowhere near symmetrical. His eyes are small and his mouth is wide, and his nose looks like it’s been broken at least once and not properly set.
I mean, obviously his body is incredible, so when I catch myself inadvertently checking him out, that’s not all that surprising. The way that watching his large fingers skating over his mouth affects me, however, catches me off guard.
I’m sure there’s something biological to it. My body likes his pheromones, or my legs like the feeling of his in between them.
God, maybe I really should have invited Theo down. This is the last thing I should be spending precious brain cells on right now.
His hand falls back down to the table and our eyes connect, a feeling like a live wire touched a metal point in the center of my chest. “I’m just not sure,” he says.
“Hm?” I’ve totally lost track of what we were talking about.
“I’m not sure why she’d invite us down here, pay us to work, and then punch holes in her own story.” He shifts in his seat, our thighs grazing again.
Our server stops by to drop off my hot dog and refill Hayden’s water. “You sure there’s nothing else I can get you?” she asks him.
“No, thanks,” he says.
She leaves us to attend to one of her other tables, and Hayden catches me staring at him. Thinking at him, really.
“What?” he asks, one eyebrow cocked.
“Do you only eat salad?” I ask.
His lips part, a divot forming between his eyebrows. Then his mouth presses shut again. “I try to stay in shape when I’m traveling for work. If I lose my rhythms, it’s hard to get back on them once I’m home.”
“So is that a yes?” I ask.
A slow tug at one side of his mouth turns into a smile, an actual, recognizable smile. “No, Alice, I don’t only eat salad. The other day I actually had an amazing croissant.”
“Oh my god, it was so good, wasn’t it?” I say, right before biting into my vegan dog.
“So good,” he agrees, lifting his fork to pick at his salad. “I could feel my arteries clogging, and I didn’t even care.”
I snort. “I think the green tea–drinking, morning running, salad-noshing wonder of the East Coast can have one croissant without having a cardiac event. Not even my sister eats like you, and she’s had like fourteen heart surgeries.”
His brow tightens, his smile vanishing. “Your Peace Corps sister?”
“I only have the one,” I tell him.
He sets his fork back down, jaw tense. “Is she okay?”
“Yes!” I say quickly. “Sorry! I buried the lede there. She’s fine. Healthy as a horse. Or, you know, a human with a healthy heart. This all happened when we were kids.”
“Shit.” His frown returns. “What happened?”
“It was an issue she had at birth,” I say. “So she was in and out of hospitals a lot when we were small. But she’s been doing really well since, like, high school. That was my whole point. You eat like a bird compared to her.”
“Is she older or younger,” he asks.
“Older,” I say. “Three years. What about your brother? The perfect doctor one?”
His mouth twists wryly, but I wouldn’t quite call it a smile. “I only have the one,” he says, repeating my words back to me. “Two years older. Did I mention he was the captain of our high school football team?”
“You didn’t have to,” I tease. “It was implied.”
He lets out a snort. It sounds like an angry bull, but I’m pretty sure it’s his laugh.
“What position did you play?”
Now he outright scoffs, rolls his eyes as he sits forward again, forearms once more pressing into the table. “None.”
“Basketball?” I say.
“Despite my dad’s greatest wishes,” he says, “no.”
“Hayden,” I say. “You’re like six seven and pure muscle. You could be a millionaire right now.”
“I don’t think that’s how sports work,” he says. “I think you also have to have ‘talent’ or ‘coordination.’ ” He puts both basketball prerequisites in half-formed finger quotes against the table. “And also I’m six three.”
“Hm.” I nod thoughtfully. “That’s like a basketball five eight.”
“Now I’m wondering,” he drawls, “why you didn’t become a mathematician.”
“Well, if you’d like, I can get you my mom’s phone number and the two of you can compare notes about all the more impressive jobs I could’ve had, and then I can reach out to your dad and let him know I agree you should’ve played basketball in high school.”
“No, don’t give him the satisfaction,” he says. “I already know you’re both right. If I could do it again, maybe I would’ve tried it, just to see. But at that point there was basically nothing I wanted to do more than the opposite of whatever he and my mom wanted me to do.”
“So you didn’t get along?” I ask.
His huge shoulders lift and slump again. “No, I mean, we do now. They’re actually pretty great. I just wasn’t a kid who did well with the kind of expectations people had for my family. It’s better, now that I live somewhere else. It’s not like every little thing I do reflects on them anymore.”
“I get that,” I say.
“You do?” he asks, the rest of his question hanging there, unsaid: How?
I don’t talk about all this a lot, but I also get the feeling this isn’t Hayden’s usual conversational fare either, and it feels good, almost like he trusts me.
“My parents were kind of…” I search for a word that encompasses all of it. Of course there isn’t one. That’s the deal with people. They’re always more than one thing, and a lot of times they’re even a collection of contradictory traits. “They’re eccentric,” I say. “Super idealistic and passionate and…capable, I guess? Before my sister and I were born, they were actually part of this farming commune, so they knew how to do everything. And thanks to them, I know how to do a lot of things too.”
“Such as?” he asks.
I shrug. “Darning socks. Altering clothes. Cooking. Canning fruit and veggies. Gardening. That kind of thing.”
“Wow,” he says. “Pretty impressive.”
“Now, sure,” I agree. “But when I was a kid, it was mortifying. We lived in this really small, homogenous town, and my parents were hippie journalists who literally chained themselves to trees in the seventies. Growing up, my sister and I both got bullied pretty badly, because everyone thought my parents were weird. And it didn’t help that we were homeschooled until high school, because of my sister’s health problems. Or that we wore homemade clothes. Or that I was seven inches taller than every other girl in my grade. Frankly, there was a lot working against us.”
Another sliver of smile.
“But the thing is, none of those kids knew what was going on at home. What Audrey was dealing with. Just like I didn’t know what they were dealing with. Most people aren’t mean for no reason, you know? Stuff’s going on with them too.”
“Alice,” he says, softly chiding. “Some people are just assholes.”
“I know,” I say. “Some. Not most.”
This time, his amusement takes the form of a quiet huff.
“What?” I say.
“I just…” I can see the wheels turning as he considers his next words. “You might be the least cynical person I’ve ever met. I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone like you.”
I narrow my eyes. “You mean I’m naive.”
“No, Alice,” he replies. “If that’s what I meant, then that’s what I would’ve said.”
