“Am I someone you just met?”
Kal shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what we are.”
“Yes, well, I know what we’re not.”
“Enlighten me.”
“We’re not willing.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means there’s love, and then there’s something more than love, and the something more is about being willin
g to love completely. We’re not anywhere near completely, Kal. We like each other, maybe we do love each other, but all you’re thinking about is what’s next for you. You said goodbye and it was about what you were willing to give me and what you had to hold back for yourself. I just don’t think—”
“Hang on, last time I checked we were two people. Don’t you have a completely, too? Because you were completely willing to get on that plane—”
“I didn’t.”
“—and you were completely willing to drag me back to Wisconsin on another chauffeur errand without taking ten minutes to ask if it was what I wanted to do. Everything you have to say about the future is completely about your plans, where you’re going to live, the apartment you’ll maybe buy if you feel like it. You interviewing my mom is what you want. You dragging me to Wisconsin is about what you want. And tomorrow, and the next day, I’m willing to bet they’re going to be about what you want, too, because you haven’t one time woken up in the morning and said to me, ‘Hey, Kal, what did you have in mind for today?’?”
“Maybe that’s because you’ve never told me a single thing about yourself that I didn’t have to pry out of you.”
“Or you can just pry it out of my mom or my baby sister, since that’s turning out to be easier.”
Rosemary stared at a spot on the carpet. Her cheeks were scarlet, her chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his T-shirt. “I didn’t want to do this.”
“Neither did I.”
She looked at him. It was awful.
So much more awful than it had been at the airport, because they’d said the things they’d been trying not to say for days.
“It’s done, though,” she said. “Isn’t it.”
It wasn’t a question. Kal didn’t have to answer it.
He rifled a shirt out of his bag, grabbed the car keys and a key to the hotel room, and walked away.
Chapter 24
Rosemary sat on a stool on the dining room side of the kitchen counter in Nancy Fredericks’s ranch home. On the kitchen side, her daughter and Nancy performed an elaborate dance of preparation for the arrival of an entire houseful of guests Rosemary hadn’t known were coming.
“T-minus four hours until they get here,” Nancy announced. “Where are we at on the hors d’oeuvres?”
“Baked beans are in the Crock-Pot,” Beatrice replied. “Goat cheese dipper wonton thingies are wrapped up in the fridge. Party dip is mixed and in Crock-Pot number two.”
This weekend would be Bill and Nancy Fredericks’s long-delayed fortieth anniversary party. Their children were on their way home with their significant others, which meant the arrival of Winston and Allie was imminent, as well as Nancy’s other daughter, May, and her boyfriend, Ben.
Rosemary had picked the worst possible time to crash back into Beatrice’s life—as Beatrice had made perfectly clear when Rosemary turned up on the doorstep.
Awkward didn’t begin to describe how Rosemary felt. Miserable unwanted hopeless wanker came closer to the mark.
“Beverages?” Nancy asked.
“Cans in the cooler in the garage, beer in the garage fridge, white wine in the kitchen fridge, red wine on the counter. Do we need hard stuff, too?”
“We’ve got hard stuff in the basement—I’m sure most of it will migrate upstairs before dinner. What am I forgetting?”