Life and Other Inconveniences(91)

Poor guy. Poor, sweet, kindhearted guy.

He was lean and warm and smelled like sunshine and salt air, and he was taller than I thought. My face fit against his shoulder.

“Shit, is there romance brewing here?” Beth asked, and we broke apart.

Miller wiped his eyes in that way men do, one-handed.

Beth leaned on the counter. “Did I interrupt? If you guys need to start kissing, I can just stay here and watch in a totally non-pervy way.”

“We were not kissing,” I said.

“Yet,” Beth said.

“Make yourself useful and grab the chips, Beth.” I patted Miller’s arm (his bicep was rather gloriously hard and full) and took the guacamole into the conservatory.

Miller didn’t say much, but he made a fire in the fireplace, as it was getting chilly, and I lit a bunch of candles and kept the windows open. Got a few Genevieve London cashmere throws, and we sat there, laughing and talking and drinking wine and eating my very good guacamole. Amid stories about how Calista and I had met (me falling off my bike and thinking I had a hematoma and not just a bruised ass), and how Beth and I had met (first day of fourth grade, fell off the monkey bars and got a legit concussion, and Beth walked me in to the nurse), I found myself looking at Miller more than a few times.

He wasn’t boyishly good-looking, the way Jason was. He was a man, and his battles showed on his face—the grief, the responsibility, the weariness. But there was intelligence there, too, and when he smiled, it felt . . . profound. Not just a knee-jerk reaction, but an affirmation that life still held beautiful things.

We talked about traveling, kids, books, television shows, what our parents were up to (I sat that one out; I wasn’t sure whether my father was even in the country or not). It was lovely, really.

“Well, I should get going,” Miller said eventually. “I told the babysitter I’d be home before ten. Thanks for tolerating me, ladies.”

“It was tough,” Calista said. “You’re rude and ugly and we don’t like you at all.”

There was that smile again.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” I said, standing up.

He thoughtfully grabbed his beer bottle and the now-empty bowl of chips and put them in the kitchen. We passed through the formal dining room, where there was a painting of the sea over the fireplace.

“Is that a Winslow Homer?” he asked.

I squinted at the signature. “Yes.”

“Holy crap. It’s gorgeous.” We went into the foyer. “This is such a beautiful house,” Miller said.

“It is,” I said. “I heard you did some work updating it a few years ago.”

“Will you have dinner with me sometime?” he replied, then looked away, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. “Sorry. Not exactly a date, but just . . . well, maybe a little bit of a date. Except you’re Jason’s ex and it might be weird for you, and I’m not exactly firing on all pistons these days, kind of a mess, really, and—”

“I’d love to.”

He looked up. “Yeah?”

“Sure.”

He gave a crooked smile, and my heart squeezed a little.

It had been a long time since I’d felt any kind of way about a man other than Jason. A really long time. I shushed the warning voices in my head and smiled back.

“Great,” he said. “I won’t kiss you or anything.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” I winked, then cringed internally—leave the winking for George Clooney, Emma—and kept the smile firmly on my face. “I’m kidding. Dinner will be really nice.”

He looked at me another minute, still smiling. “Okay. Bye.” He nodded and went down the walk.

That warm, tight feeling in my stomach stayed.

I went back into the conservatory.

“Someone has a boo,” Beth said, and they all laughed their tipsy heads off.

I didn’t deny a thing.





CHAPTER 27


    Genevieve


On a sunny afternoon the week after Donelle and I had had one last trip to New York, I decided to practice suicide by swimming. My original date for this endeavor had been postponed due to weather.

The trip to the city had been everything I hoped. I’d booked us a day at Great Jones Spa, where Donelle’s grumbles of “how the one percent lived” turned into groans of joy with the aromatic towel massage and Italian blood orange sea salt scrub and lemon verbena manicure. She even drank a green smoothie.

It was a true pleasure to see her so pampered, swathed in a luxurious bathrobe, being fussed over by angelic creatures with soft voices. Not that she’d worked terribly hard for the past fifteen years, but even so. Where would I have been without her?

After the spa, we went to a posh cocktail bar in the West Village, where, much to my delight, I’d been recognized by the bartender. He made us a special cocktail with gin, sage, honey and lemon and dubbed it “the Genevieve,” took our picture, posted it on social media and said it would be a permanent fixture on the menu. For the next round, he made “the Donelle”—a gin and tonic with rhubarb, lemon and a slice of jalape?o, “because I can tell you’re a handful.” Obviously, she was delighted.

We avoided the Genevieve London store on Madison Avenue. Why bother? I doubted Beverly would let me raid the racks the way I had with Riley, and besides, Donelle knew those weren’t my designs anymore. In fact, she was the only one, aside from my attorney, who knew everything.