14. Solenne #3
He takes a moment before answering. “Then I’ll still be her father. She won’t have to choose sides.”
I pull a leaf of rosemary from the bone on my plate. I want to believe him. Tonight I can at least listen.
The waiter clears our plates and returns with the dessert menu. I’m not hungry anymore, but I’m not ready for the evening to end either.
“Something sweet?” Valentin asks.
“The chocolate torte. To share?”
“Perfect.”
He orders, and we settle back into conversation. He asks about Rachel, about the other producers involved in the project, about the timeline. Not in a way that feels like he’s checking up on me or trying to insert himself into my work. Just genuine curiosity about something that matters to me.
“The hardest part,” I tell him, “is trusting my own instincts. After everything that happened, I second-guess myself constantly. Am I making this choice because it’s right, or because I’m scared? Am I being careful or just closed off?”
“I think that’s normal. After what I put you through.”
“Maybe. But it makes the creative work harder. You have to be willing to take risks, to commit to a direction even when you’re not sure it’s right. And I keep hesitating.”
“What helps?”
“Sometimes I steal a trick from Summer. When she can’t decide what color something should be, she tries one on another piece of paper. I’ve started keeping a document for scenes I’m probably going to throw away. It helps, knowing nobody has to see them.”
“You used to be very decisive about what should be thrown away.”
“Such as?”
“You told me my shoes were ugly once. No hesitation at all.”
I laugh, the memory surfacing. “They were ugly. Those brown things with the weird buckles.”
“Those were expensive shoes.”
“They were still ugly.”
“I stopped wearing them.”
“Good.”
The torte arrives, dark and dense and glistening. We eat it slowly, trading bites, and something about the simple pleasure of sharing dessert makes me feel, for a moment, like nothing is broken at all.
“Can I ask you something?” Valentin says.
“Yes.”
“Are you happy? Here, I mean. In Los Angeles. With the work and the life you’re building.”
I consider the question carefully. “I’m getting there. It’s not the life I imagined, but it’s mine. I made choices about where to be and what to do, instead of just following someone else’s plan.”
“That’s important.”
“It is. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m building something instead of just surviving something.”
He nods slowly. “I want you to have that. Whatever happens with us. I want you to keep building something that’s yours.”
The waiter approaches one final time.
“Would you like a photograph? To remember the evening?”
I start to decline automatically, but Valentin looks at me.
“Only if you want to,” he says. “No pressure.”
I think about it. A photograph of this moment. This complicated, hopeful, uncertain moment where I don’t know what comes next but I’m not running away from finding out.
“Okay,” I say. “One photo.”
The waiter positions us at the table, the candle and the peonies visible between us, and takes the picture with Valentin’s phone. The two of us, careful distance still between us, something in our expressions that looks almost like the beginning of something new.
“Thank you,” Valentin tells the waiter. Then, to me: “I’ll send it to you. If you want.”
“Send it.”
***
We leave the restaurant into a cool May evening, the streets quiet, the city settling into its nighttime rhythm. The car is waiting at the curb, the driver patient and unobtrusive.
On the way back to Odette’s, my phone lights up with the photograph. I enlarge it before I can think better of it. There’s a little chocolate on the edge of my plate, and I’m looking at Valentin instead of the camera.
Beside me, he loosens his collar. I let the screen go dark.
When we pull up to Odette’s house, the porch light is on but the windows are dark. Summer must be asleep. Odette probably reading in her room.
Valentin gets out to open my door. He walks me up the path while I look for my keys. At the porch steps, I find them and stop searching my bag. He waits beside me.
“Thank you,” I say. “For tonight. For all of it.”
“Thank you for coming.”
He reaches out slowly, giving me time to pull back.
When I don’t, he takes my hand in his. His fingers are warm, careful.
He lifts my hand to his lips and presses a kiss to my knuckles.
Gentle. Unhurried. His mouth lingers there, soft against my skin, and I feel the warmth spread up my arm, into my chest, somewhere I’d forgotten could still feel anything at all.
“Goodnight, Solenne.”
“Goodnight.”
He releases my hand and steps back, returning to the car. The driver is already behind the wheel, engine idling. Valentin pauses at the door and looks back at me once, just for a moment, before getting in.
I stay on the porch until the taillights disappear around the corner.
My keys press into my palm. Behind the door, Summer is asleep, and there’s work on my desk for the morning. I can go inside. Nothing is stopping me.
I let him leave.
I’m still on the porch when I wish I hadn’t.