Sophia weaves through the tables, her steps a beat too fast to be casual. All three of us watch her flee toward the back of the restaurant.
“Oh,” Scarlett. “I really hope we—”
“It’s okay,” Percy says. His eyes are on Sophia, and he takes a step forward. “I’ll go see if she’s okay.”
I stop him with a hand on his shoulder. “No, you won’t.”
His eyes narrow. “I was her husband.”
“Yes,” I say. “Was. Now you’re just the ex, and I’d suggest you remember that.”
I leave the two of them there, standing next to the table that had been ours. What a small man, I think. His motives are hidden behind a wafer-thin facade. He still cares for her, in whatever twisted, sick way that might be, and he wants to make her jealous. Wants to test her, again and again, to see if she still cares.
He’d seen us here, and unlike his social climbing girlfriend, he hadn’t wanted to mend relationships. He wanted to set them on fire.
The bartender gives me a dirty look when I crack open the door to the women’s bathroom, but I ignore him. Sophia’s standing by the sinks. Her hands are braced against the marble, back hunched, and she’s crying so hard her body is shaking.
I close the door behind me. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. The beautiful face is marked with tears, and all because of the asshole out there. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Sorry. I just…”
“Don’t apologize.” I wrap my arms around her. She resists for a second, but then her chin comes to rest on my shoulders. “That was a shitty thing to tell you like that.”
It makes her cry harder, with sobs so strong they rack her body in my arms. I tug us closer to the door and fit my foot against it, keeping it shut for everyone else.
“Sorry,” I murmur again. Her hair smells good, and I breathe it in, staring at the lime-washed wall across from us. How could a man behave like he had? Committing the crime, not owning up to it, and then continuing to torture the person he’d already hurt. He’d acted entitled back in school, if I remember correctly. Anthony had been in the same grade as him, and the few things that filtered back to me over the years had never been positive.
I run my hand over Sophia’s back, up and down, feeling the curve of her spine and the shaking of her body.
Cordelia cheating on me had stung.
It had disillusioned me, it had been embarrassing, and it had wounded my pride. But it had never hurt quite like this. The betrayal had been one of trust, not of the heart, because I’d never truly given her mine.
I thought I had. But I realize now, in more ways than one, that I’d confused an errant ray of sunshine for the whole sun.
Sophia won’t stop shaking. It’s half sobbing, and half panic attack, and her hands at my neck are holding on tightly.
“Here,” I murmur and shift us to the chair in the corner. She sits down on my lap. “We don’t have to go out there again.” I run my hand over her back, listen to the muffled sounds of her sadness. She’d cried that morning, too, after we’d spent the night together for the first time.
Someone pulls at the restroom door.
“Occupied!” I bark.
The pulling stops. The crying doesn’t, but it turns softer, quieter. And all the tears are for Percy.
“Our dinner date…” she whispers.
“Fuck the dinner,” I say. “I’ll take you back home, and we can order takeout. Or we cancel the evening entirely if you’d rather be alone,” I say, even if the idea of leaving her on her own in this state feels impossible.
“Do you think they’re still out there?”
“We’ll leave out the back,” I say.
“We have to pay our check…”
“I’ll handle all of it.”
Her hands slide down the front of my chest. She leans back, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed with moisture. But she’s not sobbing anymore.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t know why that affected me so much.”
I smile. It’s not a happy one. “Don’t you?”
“I think I’m ready to leave. If we can.”
“We can. Let me leave the restrooms first, all right? I’ll pay for the drinks and make sure we can use the back exit.”
“Okay,” she murmurs and runs her palms over her cheeks, wiping away the tears. “Thanks.”
The waiter doesn’t miss a beat when I hand her a hundred-dollar bill for our two glasses of wine. “Change of plans,” I tell her. “We’ll be using the delivery exit.”
She only nods. Good old Salt, I think, and the fancy clientele with their odd requests. This isn’t the weirdest one she’s had today, I’m sure of it.
Sophia and I walk through a kitchen busy with activity. One or two chefs shoot us curious looks, but the seasoned pros don’t look up from their work. Yeah, this happens all the time.
We walk for a solid block before either of us speaks.
“Wow,” she murmurs. Her voice is still a bit hoarse. “I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“Want to walk?” I ask. “The hotel is close by.”
“Walking is nice, actually, but… I think I need to go home. I have that pitch tomorrow, you know.”
“Right, of course.”
The air between us feels stiff with anguish. I’d known she wasn’t ready to date anyone. That her heart still ached over her divorce, that she was career-focused, that we’d both used one another as mutually beneficial pawns to prove a point.
And yet.
“I’ll get us a taxi.”
“Thanks,” she says. “Want to come on up, too?”
“Yes,” I say. “But only if you want me to.”
She exhales softly and leans her shoulder against mine. “Yes, please. Let’s have at least some fun out of this evening.”
Our taxi driver starts off talkative but takes one long look in the rearview mirror and doesn’t ask us another question about how our night has been. We must be quite the pair. One somber and the other quiet with red-ringed eyes.
Milo is nowhere to be seen when we arrive to her apartment, and Sophia heads straight to the kitchen. I lean against the doorframe and watch her make a cup of tea.
“Hungry?” I ask.
She shrugs and gives me a tired smile. “Not really. But I think I’ll get hungry when there’s food on the table, if you know what I mean?”
I open my phone. “Yeah, I do. Anything in particular you’re craving?”
“Pasta or pizza. No, actually, I want a burger, a proper one, with fries. Is that okay?”
“Yes, absolutely. Seems like there’s a place around the corner that makes truffle burgers.”
“That sounds delicious.”
I place the order, and then I stand in her kitchen and watch her put the pieces of her injured heart together. She does it gracefully. Minute by minute, the tension starts to leak out of her shoulders.
We sit on her couch, and she props her head up with a hand. “How do you feel?” I ask.
“All right,” she says. “I won’t fall apart again. I promise.”
“It’s okay if you do.”
She smiles, a little ruefully. “Thanks. But I know that was… a lot back there. I’m sorry about it.”
I sigh. “Please don’t apologize.”
“God, I have to.” She puts a hand over her face, eyes closing. “I’m so embarrassed about all of it.”
“Don’t be.”
“I wasn’t supposed to react like that. I didn’t want to react like that.”
“That was outside of your control,” I say, and feel the sour taste of truth in those words. It’s not her fault. Not in the least. And I had always known, deep down, that she was still in love with Percy. Hadn’t I?
She sighs. “I guess I ruined our final date, huh?”
“You didn’t ruin it,” I say. “Your asshole of an ex-husband did.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Why is New York the smallest town in the world when it’s actually one of the biggest?”
“I shouldn’t have taken us to Salt,” I say. Anywhere else, and this night would have ended differently. Anywhere else, and she wouldn’t have broken apart, sobbing in a public restroom.
Sophia shrugs. “They have great food. I understand why you booked it.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what happens now?” She glances at the clock on her windowsill. “At midnight, when our weeks are officially up. Will I turn back into a pumpkin and you into the untouchable prince?”
“In the analogy you crafted,” I say, “I think I was the princess.”
A true smile lights her face. “Oh, that’s right. How did I forget?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not too offended.”
“What a relief,” she says and pulls her legs up beneath her on the couch. “Tomorrow, I can’t do this with you anymore.”
“Eating truffle burgers on your couch.”
“Exactly,” she says. “I’ll have to do it alone, and that’s just sad.”
I run a hand along my jaw. Still in love with her ex, I think. The words I’d prepared for tonight don’t feel appropriate right now. “We’ll see how we feel,” I say. “It’s not like we’ve signed a contract.”
“No, just a professional one,” she says and smiles. It’s a soft one. A private one. Different than the sharply tinged professional one she’ll wear tomorrow. Hair likely swept back, a pencil skirt on, and delivering the pitch of a lifetime.
I can’t wait to see it, and I can’t believe I get to see this side of her now, too. The fierce and the soft.
“That’s a question for tomorrow,” I say. “First you have a terrifying client to pitch to.”
She pretends to shudder. “Yes, God help me.”
“I doubt he’s that scary.” I rise from the couch. Stay any longer, and I won’t be able to leave. And I should. She has work, and she’s sad. It’s there in her eyes, even if she tries to hide it.
Sophia rises too. She’s standing close to me, body against body, heat against heat. “He’s scary sometimes,” she murmurs, “but tonight, he was nicer than I could ever have imagined.”
“For you,” I murmur, “anytime.”
She takes my hand and threads her own fingers through it. “Stay the night?” she says. “This isn’t technically off-limits until after the pitch tomorrow.”
It’s late when we finally stretch out in her bed to sleep. It’s a queen, smaller than mine, and it smells like her. I pull her close, and she nestles against me, her breathing heavy. I look up at the ceiling and think about Percy’s smug face and Sophia’s tears.
It’s been years since I’d stopped believing that relationships can work, and years since I stopped thinking they were a worthwhile investment in my life. But here I am, starting to believe again, and all thanks to a woman who isn’t ready to love someone new.
