“Good luck with your … match, or whatever, next week. Maybe we’ll watch. Will it be on ESPN?”
“Should be.”
Lucia yawns.
“That’s our cue,” I say. “Thanks again for … everything.”
Just like that, the world’s biggest tennis player (according to Google) and the most breathtaking specimen of man I’ve ever laid eyes on backs out of my driveway. I watch his red taillights fade to nothing in the distance, and then I carry Lucia inside.
Carina will be pleased as punch tomorrow when I tell her I’m ninety-nine percent sure he doesn’t have any custody ulterior motives. He’s simply a man curious about his only child. This was simply closure for him, I’m positive.
It’ll never be anything more—and it was never meant to be.
I prepare Lucia’s bedtime bottle and take her to her room, rocking her in the sea foam green chair by her window and watching as her lids grow heavy and she pushes the bottle away. When she’s finally out, I place her gently into her crib.
Lingering, I watch her dream, my sweet little legacy.
When I return to the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of red wine, grab my iPad, and draw a hot bath to wash this strange day off me.
I’m up to my neck in lavender-and-chamomile scented bubbles, ten minutes into the third season finale of Grey’s Anatomy when my phone lights with a call …
… from Fabian.
Chapter 8
Fabian
* * *
I’m halfway to the hotel when something feels … off. Like I’m lighter, but not in an emotional sense, in a literal, physical way.
Something is missing.
Shifting in the driver’s seat, that’s when it hits me. I reach into my back left pocket—and find nothing. My wallet must’ve fallen out at Rossi’s.
Groaning, I lean my head against the headrest and swipe my phone from the console, switching lanes before calling her.
“Hello?” she answers on the third ring.
“Hey. Think I left my wallet at your place,” I cut to the chase. “Can you check your couch?”
A whoosh of water fills the background—was she in the bath?
“Um, yeah. Two seconds,” she says. More water. The slap of wet footsteps against tile. A door swinging open. “Checking now …”
I stop at a red light, glancing up at my reflection in the rearview. A white Audi pulls up next to me, filled to the brim with girls and pumping with dance music. The front passenger rolls her window down, screaming my name. A rear passenger rolls hers down and the entire backseat yells at me. Just before the light changes to green, another passenger rises from the sunroof, flailing her arms.
“Found it,” Rossi says.
I acknowledge the girls with a quick wave that sends them screaming, press the gas, hook a right, and turn back around. “I’ll be there soon.”
Half an hour later, I’m right back where I started, trotting up to the happy yellow door of the pristine white bungalow, only this time the moon glows overhead and the house is a little less illuminated than it was when I left.
Assuming the baby’s asleep, I knock lightly. Three times, then I clear my throat and wait. Five seconds later, Rossi answers, her face clean and her curves wrapped in a pink satin robe. A mess of shiny chocolate hair is piled into a bun on the top of her head, and two damp, face-framing tendrils hang near her eyes.
“Come on in, it’s in the kitchen,” she says.
A glass of wine and an open bottle rest on the island next to my wallet.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” I say.
Cinching the lapels of her robe, she laughs through her nose. “I was just unwinding from the day. I’m dressed under here. For the record. I have pajamas on.”
“Ah, so you’re not trying to seduce me.” I give her a wink as her cheeks grow rosy, and I slide my billfold into my pocket. “Glad we cleared that up.”
“If I were trying to seduce you, believe me, you’d know.” She reaches for her wine, taking a sip and staining her rosy lips a shade darker. “I’m sorry. This is weird, isn’t it? Like we’re not flirting but we are? And we shouldn’t be. I don’t mean to make this awkward. I should probably lay off the fermented grapes …”
She slides her glass away, burying her pretty face in her hand as she leans over the island.
The honesty is refreshing, the awkwardness endearing.
“Maybe we should make it ten times more awkward and have a toast,” I say. “To our beautiful masterpiece, Lucia.”
“I can totally get down with an awkward toast to Lucia.” She retrieves a stemless glass from the cabinet by the sink, dumps the rest of the wine into it, and hands it my way.
Clinking mine against hers, I say, “To Lucia. May she forever stay happy and healthy.”
“To Lucia.” Her distracting blue gaze melts onto mine. “And to you.”