24. “He’s not.”
“HE’S NOT.”
YASMINE
Aweek after the night at the farmhouse, my girls and I were sitting side by side in a nail salon while a woman named Lana took a file to my left heel with monastic focus.
Hale had come along as an honorary invite, on the grounds that the man appreciated cuticle care with unsettling sincerity.
Nico was only supposed to drop Tabby off. Instead he lingered near the door, six-three and built like he split wood for fun, watching Hale reclined in the massage chair beside me, feet in warm water, eyes closed like this was his natural habitat.
“Remind me,” Nico said, “what the official reason was that I couldn’t join book club?”
Ava didn’t look up from her color samples. “Vibes.”
“Define vibes.”
“Having a penis would disrupt the group dynamic.”
Nico stuck a thumb in Hale’s direction. “And he doesn’t bring similar anatomical concerns to spa day?”
Tabby considered this seriously, looking at Hale, then back at Nico, like the thought had just occurred to her. “Well. No.”
“I asked you to marry me, Tabby.”
“But he exfoliates.”
Hale didn’t open his eyes. “I do.”
“Moisturizes too,” Annie added.
Hale cracked one eye open. “Also, I’m soothing. Some might say zen.”
Nico’s face moved by half a degree, which, for Nico, was deep affront. “I’m zen.”
Tabby patted his arm. “You are, babe. Just not pedicure zen.”
“What’s pedicure zen?”
Hale closed his eye again. “If you have to ask, then you’re not it.”
Nico nodded once, accepting this without visible reaction, then pulled a chair beside Tabby’s station. “Fine. I’ll observe.”
And that was that. He was staying for the full study.
I glanced at Hale and caught his mouth tipping into a small private smile.
Zen, my ass. He was a shit-stirrer.
The salon offered mimosas about thirty minutes in, and I was there.
Mostly.
A part of me was doing what it always did. Watching. Lately, though, it felt more like framing.
I caught myself wanting pieces of it. Ava’s zoned-out stillness. Nico’s face as he processed nail shape terminology. Tabby laughing at something he said, trouble slipping through even when she tried to keep a straight face. Annie’s quiet satisfaction after finally settling on a color.
And Hale beside me, letting the conversation roll until he found the exact right place to make it worse.
The photographs on Hale’s wall came back to me. All those captured pieces of a life that looked accidental until you understood someone had been paying attention.
I wanted my camera.
Instead, I tipped my head back against the chair and shut my eyes, like that might quiet the itch.
A voice drifted over from my left. “Rare to see a man actually take care of himself like this. Most of them have to be dragged.”
“Thanks,” Hale said.
I looked over. A woman two chairs down angled toward him. She was younger than me by a few years. Pretty in that effortless way that took effort.
“You single?” she asked, clearly used to the answer being yes.
Hale drew breath, the start of whatever gracious letdown he was about to offer. But I got there first.
“He’s not.”
They both looked at me.
My mouth had answered before my brain had fully caught up, but I held his gaze. I was not walking it back.
He turned back to the woman. “I’m not,” he said easily.
She smiled. “Figures.” Then went back to her phone.
“What?” Ava’s gasp was audible. “You two are together?”
Tabby turned to Nico, her expression full of shock. “Out of left field,” she said. “I cannot believe it. Can you?”
Nico smiled, and didn’t comment.
Annie snorted. “Shocked. Truly.”
Ava’s hand went to her chest. “I need a minute. This shocking development has shaken me.”
“Save it,” I said. “I know y’all already figured it out.”
I settled back into the seat and let them carry on without me.
The thing about decisions was that sometimes you didn’t make them so much as stop fighting them. The country house had done that to me. The quiet of it. Hale in it.
When I’d asked him not to see anyone else, I’d braced for some version of let’s not make this a whole thing.
But all he’d said was okay.
Just okay.
That was us, apparently. Me arriving somewhere he’d already been. Him never mentioning how long he’d waited.
Beside me, Hale said nothing.
But I felt him shift, just slightly, just enough, toward me.