“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It’s no big deal. My friend Teagan and I had plans for my . . . We had plans, and she can’t get away from work. The stomach flu is going around the nurses and they don’t have enough staff. She feels bad, but it’s not a problem at all. We’re going to have a do-over at brunch tomorrow, and then go shopping.”
“Is it your birthday?”
“It is,” she admits with a nod. “I’m a quarter of a century old today, and can I just tell you my life is so much different than I imagined?”
“Different better or different worse?”
She drags her bottom lip between her teeth. “Just different-different.”
“It would help if your boss weren’t such an asshole.”
She gives a sardonic chuckle but doesn’t meet my eyes. “You’re not an asshole.” She shakes her head. “Not at all.”
“What else did you think would be different?”
“I’m supposed to be married. I was engaged before I came here.”
Wow. “Really?” I feel like an ass. That day I caught her looking in Elena’s closet, she told me she wanted to run away, and I was so damn busy looking at her and seeing the faults of my dead wife that I didn’t ask what she was running from.
She nods and studies the condensation on the side of her water glass. “I was supposed to be Mrs. Marcus Fitzroy. I was finally going to have a family of my own. He said he wanted kids right away.” A tear rolls down her cheek, but she wipes it away quickly.
She seems too young to have already been almost-married. Then again, by the time I was twenty-five, Elena and I had been married three years. Most days, it feels like our wedding was in a different lifetime. “What happened?”
“He fell for my sister?” The words come out like a question, as if she still isn’t convinced that’s what happened, but then she nods and her chest expands with her deep inhale. “While I was planning our wedding, they were messing around.” She lifts her eyes to meet mine for the first time since I guessed it was her birthday. The sadness there pulls at me. I want to take her into my arms. To make her feel cherished. To make her forget the asshole who hurt her. “I found out on my wedding day.”
I draw in a shaky breath. I don’t know who I’d be angrier with—the sister or the fiancé. “Shit. I’m so sorry.”
“I think she helped me dodge a bullet, you know what I mean? But yeah. I’ve never felt so alone in my life. Then I came here and . . .”
“At least the timing just worked out, right? This job gave you an excuse to get away.” She was still upset about him the night I met her, so her wedding couldn’t have been too long before Mom posted the position.
She drops her gaze to the table and runs her fingers along the wood grain. “Sometimes we need an excuse to do something crazy.”
“Is your sister still with the guy?”
“Apparently so.” She draws in a deep breath and replaces her frown with a smile, but this one is less believable than her usual cheerful grin. “I called to wish her a happy birthday, and he was there with her.”
“Today is her birthday too?”
“Yes.” She meets my eyes. “We’re twins.”
This asshole cheated on her with her twin? That seems even worse somehow, though I’m not sure my opinion of him could sink any lower. “The night we met, when you got a text and went to the bathroom all upset . . . was that because of him?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe it was more because of her, ya know? What he said to me just reinforced all those childhood insecurities.”
I lean forward on the table. This is more than she’s ever opened up about herself, and I want everything she’s willing to give. “Like what?”
“I grew up feeling redundant. My identical twin wasn’t just like me. She was better. More vibrant, more fashionable, more fun.”
“I doubt anyone sees you that way. You’re an amazing person, Nic. Always thinking of everyone else.”
“That’s what makes my sister so exciting. She doesn’t give a damn about anyone else. She’s the one who gets in trouble but also the one who lives life in a big way. She’s like fireworks, and I’m boring. Like a photocopy—a match that doesn’t retain the gleam of the original.”
“I can’t imagine anyone believing that about you. You shine. If your sister is fireworks, then you’re the sun. She might flash and dazzle, but you keep everyone warm.”
She bites her bottom lip and studies me. “Thank you for saying that.”
“It’s true.”
She breaks eye contact, and it’s like I’m released from a spell. “And again, thanks for being such a good sport about all that. I can definitively say you’re the only guy who’s rescued me from a bathroom stall.”