26
The next day, Jules locked herself in her room in the grand tradition of The Aurora Inn: a woman trapped indoors, barred from
seeking the male companionship she craved. Except in her case, no husband guarded the door. She’d done this to herself. And
why? To resist Leo’s charm, his wit, his care, and everything else that made him who he was. It had been hard enough leaving
him last night while her whole body yearned to stay. He had a hold on her, but she would not go gentle into that good night—or
whatever.
She focused on her work and made good progress with line edits. Early evening, she ventured outdoors in shorts and flip-flops,
eager to catch the sunset. The fiery ball sank into the ocean. Jules watched from Mallory Square until the colors started
to fade, standing alone among lovers, honeymooners, and best friends forever. She then strolled along Duval to grab dinner,
making a mental note to venture beyond the main strip. On a Tuesday night, when most of the tourists had fled the city, a
particular sadness prevailed. The neon signs cast a glow of hopelessness. But coming across The Smallest Bar brought back
the cheery memory of when she and the others had crammed into the narrow space to toss back a shot before migrating to Willie
T’s.
Tired and hungry, Jules decided on The Clam Bake, another tiny establishment that specialized in all things clam.
She ventured past the restaurant’s picket fence and approached the hostess station.
The dining room sat ten, and she was looking at a twenty-minute wait.
Jules added her name to the wait list. It beat wandering around in the heat.
She went inside to take a seat at the bar. The bartender signaled he’d be with her in a minute. Before she had a chance to
order a spritz, Jules spotted Leo. Her internal GPS had guided her to him.
He stood to the side, talking with two women, likely a mother and daughter pair in matching floral dresses. More accurately,
they talked and he listened. Jules waited. He would find her, eventually. When he did, the sun rose in his eyes.
Leo excused himself and came over. Laughing, he said, “Lately, all I’ve got to do is think of you and there you are.”
She laughed, too, a spiked laugh that betrayed her frayed nerves. “Did you summon me here?”
“I might’ve,” he answered. “I ordered to go, but should I grab us a table?”
There was no doubt they would share dinner. They only had to decide on logistics. “It’s a twenty-minute wait. Maybe we should
do it your way.”
He cracked a smile. “Maybe we should.”
Ten minutes later they walked back to The Aurora, carrying brown bags stuffed with containers of clam chowder, baked clams,
clam and linguine, and the obligatory slice of key lime pie.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” he said. “Only you missed the flight home. How exactly did that happen?”
“I left my laptop behind at an airport coffee shop miles away from our departure gate. I had to go back for it.”
He agreed. “You had no choice.”
“Exactly! Ayesha expected me to rely on the kindness of strangers and the magic of lost and found.”
“Oh, fuck that.” He grinned. “You had to find that laptop, miss the flight, rent a car, and drive back to me.”
She swiveled around and walked backward, all to better confront him. “Look, I don’t mean to be a bitch—”
“Then don’t.” He caught her by the elbow and got her back in lockstep with him.
“I don’t have a choice,” Jules said. She had to make this clear. “I’m here to work.”
“So am I,” he said.
“I’m on deadline,” she said, driving her point home.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re on the same page. I’ve got one week to wrap up my research.”
She doubted they were reading the same book, much less on the same page.
When they arrived at the inn, without discussion they headed straight to his suite. They set the cartons of food on the small
coffee table, and scattered needlepoint throw pillows on the rug for seating. Leo pulled water bottles and soft drink cans
from the minibar. He offered her wine, but she turned it down. It was too hot for that.
Jules got comfortable on a bed of pillows. Leo sat beside her on the rug. “I used to think this seating area was wasted space,
but look at us now, peas in a fucking pod.”
“Friendly reminder there is no us.”
He gave her a pointed look. “Then explain how you’re here tonight.”
“I can’t explain it,” she admitted. The effort she’d put in to avoid him had amounted to nothing. Like pouring sand into a
basket, it didn’t hold or take shape.
“No use fighting fate,” he said.
Not on an empty stomach, Jules thought. She opened a cup of chowder and took a taste. It was delicious. “Key West doesn’t get everything right, but
they hit the spot with seafood.”
“Agreed.”
They ate in comfortable silence, two peas in a pod.
“What did you do today?” he asked.
“Edits,” she said. “How about you?”
“Visited the cemetery.”
She put down her plastic spoon. The Key West Cemetery was renowned for its elaborate mausoleums and quirky epitaphs. A devotee
of Morticia Addams, she’d love to go.
“For research?” she asked.
He nodded and drew a small notebook out of his back pocket. “Want to hear some funny shit?”
“Yes!”
He pulled a pair of glasses out from nowhere cracked open the notebook. “‘I’m just resting my eyes.’ ”
“Cute.”
“This is my favorite one. ‘I told you I was sick.’ ”
Jules spilled onto her side, laughing. She loved a good I told you so moment.
“And a literary reference for us,” he said, emphasis on us. “‘So long, and thanks for all the fish.’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
“Perfect,” Jules said. “Will any of this make it into the book?”
“No,” he replied. “I’m only interested in the tombstones of people who died in 1886, after the Great Fire.”
“A historical novel from L.J. White,” Jules said. “Breaking news!”
His writing had a distinct contemporary feel and always wove in the political issues of the day.
“Getting anyone to care might be a problem,” he said.
Jules set down her cup of chowder and went for the pasta. “Should I give you the same rousing speech Vicky gave Matty?”
“Unnecessary,” he said. “It’s enough to know that you’re rooting for me. It means the world.”
She would’ve laughed it off if his tone wasn’t so earnest. “Leo, I’ve been rude to you. I’ve been a bitch . . .”
His brows spiked. “And?”
“You never hold it against me,” she continued. “Why haven’t you just . . . fucked off?”
“You have such a way with words, my love.”
“I’m serious.”
He set the notebook aside. “I haven’t been able to fuck off since the night we met,” he said. “You’ve been living in my imagination
ever since. Does that answer your question?”
“What do you think happened to us that night?” she asked. They’d gone over it before, but still, she wasn’t satisfied. The
attraction was there, right from the start, but they hadn’t yet touched on the real reason. “Why can’t we get over it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t ever plan to get over it.”
“It was just a bit of flirty banter, and not even that,” she said. “I wasn’t in a flirty mood. And if I’d made a move on a
guest, I would’ve lost my job.”
“I never thought of that,” he said. “You were so distant. I was sure I was annoying you. Now that I know about your mother,
I see it differently.”
“I was sure you thought me beneath you.”
“Never,” he said in a sharp whisper. “Don’t ever say that.”
Jules twisted a fork into the container of pasta. “What was the fight with your parents about?”
“The award.”
“Thirty Under Thirty?” It wasn’t that prestigious. It had only seemed so at the time. The PR team had worked to promote it
as the literary event of the decade. “I don’t understand. Weren’t they proud?”
“Not my dad. He was envious.”
“How small of him.” She tried to take it back. “I didn’t mean—”
“You’re right,” he said. “I committed an unpardonable sin—living his dream.”
“Your dad is a writer?” Jules asked between mouthfuls of pasta.
“It never panned out.”
Jules’s mother had come to the city to find work in the theater district as a costume designer, or at the very least, a costume
designer’s assistant. That hadn’t panned out, either. She earned a living providing tailoring services at the corner dry cleaner.
What a blessing, however, that she and her mother had had distinct dreams with no overlap, nothing to trigger worrisome competition.
Her mother had always been her first reader, and her biggest fan, but her own dreams had died at The Sun Dial Dry Cleaning.
“People would kill to have our careers,” she said. “We’re lucky.”
That was how Jules had felt the night of the gala dinner. She would’ve killed, him specifically, to trade places. But to dwell
on this was to ignore the bigger picture. Their lives had splintered and cracked that night in ways that only they understood.
They’d lost their families. His relationship with his parents ended, and her mother had begun her decline. She went from the
ER to the intensive care unit in a matter of days. Maybe that was the reason they clung to the memory; it held the DNA of
the people they were before the tragedy. What if their meet-cute wasn’t the start of a sappy love story, but something more
useful and constructive? They could heal one another without the promise of a burdensome ever after.
“Leo,” she said, sitting up straight, “tell me about that night and the fight with your parents.”
It was his turn to reach for pasta. “I already did.”
“No. I mean everything, every detail, every crumb. The hurtful words, the low blows, everything you can think of. Like talk therapy.”
Leo qualified his answer. “You’d have to do the same.”
“Of course,” she said. “This is something only we can do for each other. No one else would understand.”
He was warming up to the idea. “Will you tell me about your mother?”
“Yes,” she said. “No one knows what I’ve been through. Vicky was with me the whole time, but I felt I had to be strong and kept my true feelings locked up. I wouldn’t dare fall apart around her.”
Leo reached out and brushed her bangs to the side. “You’d trust me to put you back together if you fell apart?”