Trillion(27)

Her full lips arch for a moment.

“Do you define yourself by those things?” I ask. “The circumstances of which you had no control?”

“No.” Her smile fades and her brows narrow. “Why?”

“When someone asks me about my family, I don’t start out by saying my parents died in a fiery plane crash when I was fifteen. It’s interesting to me that you included the fact that you were raised by a single mother and that your sister is disabled.”

“I thought we were getting to know each other?”

“We are.” I sip my bourbon, unable to take my eyes off her. I’ve rattled her. But it’s an experiment of sorts. I want her to push back, to challenge me. To speak up. This is never going to work if she can’t. “It’s interesting, is all I’m saying.”

She draws in a long breath, as if she’s carefully choosing her response.

“I’m not going to discount the things that made me who I am.” Sophie lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “I was raised by a single mother. My sister is disabled. I’m choosing to share those things with you not because I’m defined by them, but because I thought we were getting to know each other …”

I smile in the dark.

Unapologetic, this one.

I like it.

“Fair enough.” I take another drink.

With my attention above, I still feel her watching me. I get the impression she isn’t sure what to make of me—yet. And that’s fine. Intrigue and curiosity is going to light the path, it’s going to get us exactly where we need to be.

“What about your father?” I ask since she mentioned her single mom. “How does he fit into the picture?”

“He doesn’t.” She takes a sip, unflinching.

“He passed?”

“No,” she says. “But he’s dead to me.”

The weight of silence that settles between us tells me to lay off the topic, so I do. For now. I’ve dated women in the past with “daddy issues,” and most of them want to talk about their father to an almost obsessive degree.

But not Sophie.

“Brutal.” I glance up at the sky to catch vivid streaks darting through the blackened sky. “Meteor shower is beginning.”

Sophie sits her drink aside and lies back on the cushions, tucking her hands behind her neck as she takes in the earthly show, but while the veins of light reflect in her deep blue eyes and she rests mere inches from me, her quietude tells me a part of her is worlds away.

“Tell me more about you, Sophie,” I say.

She blinks back into the present moment and turns to her side, facing me. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“I doubt I’m as interesting as you think I am …”

I relax on the cushions, turning on my side to face her. “Let me be the judge of that.”

She rolls to her back, watching the comets above, her chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths as if it’s been forever since she last lived in the beauty of a single, simple moment.

“It’s been a long day. You mind if we sideline that conversation and just enjoy this?” Sophie points above.

She isn’t wrong.

We’ve been chatting nonstop all afternoon, most of the conversation pointless on the surface but all of it serving the greater good.

I told her about my obsession with astronomy as a child. The awful German tutor I had in sixth grade. The memorable summer my family spent in Lebanon.

She told me about her years at Princeton. The charities she started. The organizations she chaired. All things I’d already gleaned from her HR file. But not once did she share a treasured family remembrance or defining childhood. There was no talk of relationships. Friendships or otherwise. No mention of hopes or ambitions for the future. Sophie—the real Sophie—is still buried deep inside.

This woman is a fortress.

And I intend to dismantle her brick by brick.





Eighteen





Sophie



Past



“I’m so sorry,” I tell Nolan over the phone Friday afternoon. I’m hiding in the bathroom, and I left the faucet running so my mother can’t hear. “My mom planned this last minute. She just told me about it today.”

He exhales into the receiver. “And she won’t let you stay home? You’re eighteen for Christ’s sake.”

I’ve never heard him like this—frustrated.

“It’s a two-hour drive to my grandma’s … it’s a lot for Mom to do in one weekend,” I say. She’s doing better, but she’s still not quite one hundred percent. Until then, she needs me.

“You can’t tell her you have to work?” He knows I’ve yet to mention that I quit waiting tables months ago.

For a while, I debated telling her the truth. Living this lie makes our relationship feel wrong, and it’s anything but.

Nolan talked me out of it.

He said he loves things exactly how they are, and he didn’t want to chance her getting upset.

“If I do, she might call my work and try to talk my old manager into giving me the time off.” I keep my voice low.

“You really think she’d do that?”