“He was only here for a second,” Rafe protested. “Just saying hello.”
“We do not stand around in the dining room wearing kitchen clothes.” She sniffed. “It looks unprofessional.”
“Relax, Ma,” he said, his head tilting back to look at her. “Since when do you work Saturday night?”
“There was a party to cater. Nobody else was free. And you saw — Cara was here late with her little one. This is our busy season.”
“It’s always our busy season.” He began to stack our finished plates. Rafe and I had demolished all that food in an almost embarrassingly short amount of time. “Flori!” he called, and his cute little cousin came bounding over. “Can you scare up a check?” He handed a stack of plates to her, too.
His mother lunged for the remaining dishes, practically clucking over him. “There is no check, Rafael.”
“We had a couple of beers.”
“Eh. Pablo will live. Do not run out yet. I’ll bring you dulce de leche en table.” She turned to me. “Would you like coffee?”
“Oh! No thank you. Everything was wonderful.”
She smiled and darted away. Rafe’s mother reminded me of a little bird, flitting from one place to another in an instant.
Rafe rubbed his stomach. “I needed that. Putting up with the crazy family was almost worth it.”
I gave a little groan. “Sorry, but your crazy is not nearly as crazy as our crazy.”
Rafe measured me with his chocolate eyes. “You only win this contest because of the creepy brother-in-law. Otherwise I think I’d have you beat.”
Gazing at him from across the very small table, my neck heated. Not only was it a beautiful view, but I was remembering the last time we had a contest to figure out which of us had it worse. The crazy night we’d shared was still special to me, even if I’d never figured out why Rafe had been so miserable afterward.
His mother reappeared with a plate holding four little sugary-looking squares and several slices of star fruit. “It was lovely to meet you,” she said, giving me another smile. “I am going upstairs now. You’ll be along soon?” she asked her son.
“I’m going to take Bella home, but then I’ll be right back,” he said quickly.
“You don’t have to do that,” I protested. “I’ll just catch a cab to the train station. Or Uber.”
Rafe’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re going back to Harkness? Tonight?”
I locked eyes with him, wondering why he’d assume I wanted to go home to my parents’ house after that awful scene at dinner.
We had a mini stare-down, but he caved first, looking at his watch. “When’s the last train?”
“Eleven-fifteen. I’ll make it.”
He stood. “I’ll take you.”
“Grand Central is perfectly safe,” I argued, embarrassed that he’d go all that way. After everything I’d already put him through tonight.
“125th is closer,” his mother pointed out. “And pretty girls don’t go there alone at night.”
The path of least resistance was clearly to let Rafe accompany me to the train station. “All right,” I murmured. I thanked his mother one more time for the lovely meal, and then I let Rafe lead me out of the restaurant, his hand at my back. I caught his cousin Flori smirking as we passed by. Her eyes were full of romantic theories about us.
Oh, honey. If she only knew the strange truth, she wouldn’t smile like that.
Outside, it was chilly. I pulled my wrap as tightly around me as I could. Without even a thought, Rafe put an arm around me and pulled me closer to his warm body. There was nothing sexual about it. Rafe was so… sturdy. The way I used to be, too.
I leaned in, if only for tonight.
Twenty-One
Bella
Sunday evening, Lianne came through my bathroom door unannounced. “Hey!” she said breathlessly. “I have news.”
“It’s dangerous to barge in here, you know,” I said, tossing a book off my lap. “Might have been an orgy in progress.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, dismissing my ’tude with a flip of her hand. “This is worth interrupting an orgy, anyway.”
That got my attention. “What is?”
“Come here.” She beckoned, then turned on her heel and headed back through the bathroom toward her own room.
Curious, I followed her into her tiny single, which was illuminated only by the blue light emitted by three computer monitors. “Jesus. What’s all this? You could run NASA from here.”