Chapter 43 #2
“Enough to have opinions,” he says. “And to know to trust the chef.”
His gaze drops to my mouth for a beat—brief, unhurried—then lifts again.
Jocelyn returns, sets the drink down in front of me, and I take a sip. Bitter, sweet, bright. Something in my chest loosens.
Jay sends out food without anyone ordering it. A sourdough wood-fired pizza with blistered edges and winter produce arranged like it’s been placed by instinct, not instruction. A skewer of grilled carrot coins with yogurt and something sharp and herbal that keeps pulling you back. Then Jocelyn sets down a small plate with two hot dogs, which would be unremarkable anywhere else, except these are not.
The bun is perfectly toasted. The sausage smells like smoke, spice, and umami.
“Is that a frizzled kale chiffonade on top?” I ask because I’m still me.
“Jay’s in a mood,” Jocelyn says, dry.
Samuel’s laugh is quiet, close to my ear. “You’re going to like it here,” he says, as if he’s already certain.
I should tell him not to talk like that. I should not enjoy the certainty of his words. Instead, I pick up the hot dog and take a bite.
I actually make a noise. Out loud. An embarrassing, involuntary moan of pleasure.
Samuel’s eyes flick to mine, amused. “That good?”
“I can’t talk about it yet,” I say, chewing, trying to recover my dignity. “I need a minute to process.”
Jocelyn watches me with the faintest smirk, then, like she’s remembering something, she retrieves a folded piece of paper from her apron and slides it onto the table toward Samuel.
“For you,” she says lightly, and moves away again, leaving the gesture behind like it’s nothing.
He doesn’t open it right away. He runs a thumb along the crease, as if checking a pulse.
“You get poems?” I ask because I can’t help it.
He glances up. Something in him softens, then shutters. “Jocelyn writes,” he says. “I read.” There’s pride under the restraint. And something else: a quiet protectiveness.
He opens the paper and reads once, fast. Then again, slower. The room goes a little quieter around us, or maybe that’s just my attention narrowing.
It moves me more than it should—the idea that this young woman, bold and unmistakably herself, trusts him with her words. With something tender. That he receives it without making a performance of it.
“So this is why you come,” I say softly.
He folds the poem back along the original line. “It’s part of it,” he admits.
His hand finds mine under the table. The touch is soft, steady.
I take another sip of my drink because it gives me something to do with my mouth that isn’t reckless.
“Still okay?” he asks, quiet enough that it feels like it belongs only to us.
I look at the leftover pizza, the last bite of the ridiculously good hot dog, the poem folded in his hand. Indigo’s paintings holding the room in their strange, watchful grip. The warmth, the woodsmoke, the sense that the world has narrowed to this corner table, and the feel of Samuel’s hand on mine.
“Yeah,” I say, and realize I mean it. “I’m okay.”
His mouth curves, not quite a smile, more like satisfaction. “Good,” he says. “Because I’m not ready to let you leave yet.”
I should make a joke. I should remind him I’m a woman with agency and a bedtime and unresolved problems.
Instead, I hear myself ask, “Is there dessert?”
His eyes shift—quick, assessing—and something bright sparks there. His gaze drops to my mouth again, slower this time. Under the table, his thumb traces small, deliberate circles on my wrist.
Jocelyn reappears as if summoned. “Dessert?” she asks, one brow lifting.
“Whatever Jay feels like,” Samuel says.
He turns to me. “Should we take it to go?” His voice is a shade rougher than it was a minute ago.
“Yes,” I say too fast. And when his hand tightens, just slightly, it feels less like a question and more like an answer.
Back at his place, a modest beachfront home in the hamlet of Olga, we finish a bottle of wine. Samuel comes up behind me as I stand at the window, watching the waves, and wraps his arms around my waist.
“You always smell so good,” he murmurs. “Like vanilla and mint and your garden.”
His mouth is so close I can feel his breath on my skin. I guide his hand to my breast, and he exhales a low sound that sends a shiver through me. I tip my head back, and he kisses the place where my neck meets my shoulder.
In his room, I lie back on his bed with the kind of nervous bravery that makes my skin hum. His mouth traces careful paths—down my chest, my stomach—and my body responds, eager and real.
And then my mind does the thing I wish it wouldn’t: it goes somewhere else.
Suddenly, I’m remembering Gavin’s mouth, Gavin’s hands—memory laying itself over the present like a double exposure. I’m still moving, still breathing, but now there’s a hitch in it. A split. A feeling I can’t quite outrun.
When I hear the sound of him opening the drawer, I finally stop.
“Samuel,” I say, pushing myself up on my elbows. “I’m thinking about someone else.”
He considers this for half a second. Then, choosing humor as a kindness, he teases: “If it helps, I can think about someone else, too.”
“But …”
“Really,” he says. “It’s okay, Ava. The last time I did it—months and months ago, mind you—I thought of Alexa Chung.”
“The model?”
“Actually,” he says, deadpan, “she’s a writer now, too.”
“Oh, well, then …”
“Well then, we can have sex?” he asks, like a man proposing a perfectly reasonable solution.
“No,” I say, then immediately ruin it by adding, “I meant: well, then she’s good enough for you if she’s not just a model without a brain.”
He laughs softly, like he can’t help it, and kisses me again.
It does feel good.
But Gavin’s face pops into my head again like a cruel party trick.
“It’s not fair to you that I think of someone else.”
“If it means I get to have sex with you, it’s more than fair. Plus, half of America fantasizes about someone else when they make love.”
“But we’re not in love.”
His shoulders slump, ever so slightly, so subtly I almost convince myself I imagined it.
“I wasn’t so sure of that, actually,” he says quietly.
“Oh, God,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
He looks at me for a long second. Then he exhales and softens.
“You deserve a woman who wants you more than anyone else in the world,” I tell him.
“Damn it, Ava,” he mutters. “I knew when I met you that you were a romantic.”
He sits up, studying me with amused resignation and something gentler underneath.
“Are you at least going to tell me who this guy is who just ruined a perfectly good date?” he asks. “I’ll write him into my next book and take creative liberties.”
I pour us another glass of wine and proceed to tell him everything about Gavin.
How I used to hate him. About the time he changed place cards at a Thanksgiving dinner just so he wouldn’t have to sit next to me. Not being invited to his engagement party, then working for him and becoming his friend, then falling madly, deeply in love with him even though I knew it was foolish, then sending him away to Olivia.
“He was your blind spot,” Samuel says finally.
“Blind spot?”
“You know when you’re driving along and suddenly you see a car come up on your side,” he says. “Even though you were checking your rear-view mirror and your side mirrors, maybe you even looked over your shoulder if you’re a cautious person, but there that car is, it just appears.”
He sips his wine, choosing words carefully.
“Sometimes it’s frightening,” he continues, “sometimes it’s surreal, like they came out of nowhere. Almost shocks you that you could have missed something like that.”
He looks at me.
“But the truth is they were there all along,” he says quietly. “And they could probably see you long before they blindsided you.”
His voice goes softer.
“Gavin Jones is definitely your blind spot.”