5. Vaughn
FIVE
VAUGHN
“—and I’m telling you,” Seth says, leaning forward, “the spider was the size of my hand.”
He’s even more interesting away from the conference. He’s relating a story about a spider that once got into his bed, which is pushing Australia further down my list of places to go with every word he says, when I see him.
For a moment, I think I’m wrong. It must be a doppelg?nger, because what would he be doing in Warsaw, in this hotel, at the same time as me? The odds are absurd.
But it’s him. I’ve never seen him dressed so formally before, and it’s attractive. Dark brown hair, slightly tousled. The short beard that frames his lips perfectly and those deep brown eyes that read you like he can hear your thoughts? Yeah, that’s him.
I’ve lost the thread of Seth’s story. All thoughts of dinner and the promising direction the evening is heading have fled because Silas Cross, my son’s best friend, is walking toward our table.
I’m on my feet before he reaches us.
“Silas.” His name comes out louder than I intended. I step around the table and close the distance between us, pulling him into a hug he returns with both arms. He lets out a puff of air against my ear and says something I can’t understand, but it sounds like relief. “What are you doing in Warsaw?”
“Wrapping up a project,” he says as he steps back.
He’s every bit as good-looking as I remember.
I don’t know exactly what he does. Rowan has mentioned sales or development, but I’m not sure he knows either.
“I’m flying home soon. I had no idea you were here.
If I’d known, we could have planned something. ”
“Are you heading to Colorado at some point? It would be good to see you. If I get another call from Rowan about how much he misses you, I’m going to have to stage an intervention.”
“No need. I promise to visit, and I’ll stay long enough for you to get sick of me.”
“Unlikely.” The word comes out of my mouth as I remember that thirty seconds ago, I was mentally calculating how quickly I could get Seth to my room upstairs.
The clearing of a throat breaks the spell, and Silas turns to Seth.
“Silas,” he says, extending his hand with an easy smile. “One of Vaughn’s favorite people.”
Seth takes his hand with a friendly smile. “Seth. Good to meet you.”
“Seth.” Silas says the name like he’s just put candy in his mouth and it’s about to turn from sweet to sour. He pulls out the empty chair at our table and sits down without being invited, which is the most uncharacteristic thing I’ve ever seen him do. “How do you two know each other?”
“We met at the conference,” Seth says pleasantly. “Vaughn’s presentation was the highlight of the program. I had to introduce myself.”
“That sounds about right,” Silas says, leaning back in his chair. “Vaughn’s always the smartest person in the room. Have you two been here long?”
The question is casual. The eyes are not.
“Not long,” Seth says. He glances at me with a small, warm smile. “But I was hoping we were getting to the good part of the evening.”
“Were you,” Silas says. Not a question.
“Silas.” My tone is the one I usually reserve for Rowan when he’s being difficult.
Silas ignores me the same way Rowan does.
He assesses Seth with an expression of genuine friendliness I might find more convincing if I didn’t know him quite so well.
“Vaughn and I go way back. He’s basically family.
I don’t get to see him nearly enough.” He pauses.
“It’s really important to him, family. He always says there’s nothing more important than the people who’ve been there the longest.”
I stare at him.
I have never said that in my life.
Seth, to his credit, maintains his pleasant expression, though something behind his eyes is changing. His gaze meets mine. I hold it, hoping to convey that I’m just as confused as he is.
“What plans did you have for tonight? I hear the Philharmonic is playing Chopin,” Silas continues, seemingly oblivious to the tension around the table, which again is uncharacteristic. What is he playing at?
Seth’s gaze moves between me and Silas. Then he smiles and reaches for his jacket on the back of his chair.
“I should leave you two to catch up,” he says.
“Seth, you don’t have to—”
“I really do,” he says, and his tone is kind enough to make me wish Silas had never shown up because I can tell Seth would definitely deliver on his promise. Fun. No strings.
He stands, straightens his jacket, and leans down to press a brief kiss to my cheek.
“Next conference, Doctor Reeves,” he says, his voice dropping just slightly on my title, “make sure you leave the diary clear.”
Earlier this evening, that voice saying those words in that particular register would have affected my ability to concentrate. I would have been eager to hear what else that voice might suggest later.
Now the effect is simply gone.
What a shame.
What an absolute, inexplicable shame.
I turn back to Silas.
“So,” I say.
“So,” he says. “Have you eaten?”
“We were about to order,” I say. “Before you—” I gesture vaguely at the empty chair across from me.
The corner of Silas’s mouth moves. “Before I what?”
“Arrived,” I say, which is the diplomatic version.
“Do you actually want to eat here?”
“I was going to.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He leans forward slightly. “Do you want to eat somewhere that doesn’t put the food on the plate with tweezers?”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “Yes,” I say. “Genuinely, yes.”
“Good.” He stands up, drawing my attention to how well his suit fits him. I look away as quickly.
“I need to go up to my room to grab a jacket.”
“What room are you in?”
I raise an eyebrow at him.
“In case you change your mind and I need to come up and drag your old ass outside.”
“I’m forty-eight,” I say.
“I know how old you are, Vaughn.”
Something in the way he says it feels intentional, but once again I don’t want to examine it too closely. Or ask questions, because I’m not sure I’m prepared for the answers.
“Six two zero four,” I say.
He gestures for the exit, and I follow him until he leans against a column while I head toward the elevator.
The car is empty and mercifully quick. I find my jacket on the back of the chair where I left it earlier, and I’m reaching for it when my phone rings.
Rowan.
“Dad. Did you know Silas is in Warsaw?”
“I—”
“He’s in Warsaw. You’re in Warsaw. This is incredible. You should meet up, because you’re both boring old people with no other friends and Warsaw is probably a very small city. How hard could it be to find him?”
“Warsaw has a population of nearly two million people.”
“That’s not the point,” Rowan says. “The point is that you’re both there and you should find each other and have some fun, because neither of you knows how to do that without being told.”
“We’ve actually already—”
“Also,” Rowan continues, at the same speed, “I’m saying this with love, but you both need to get your heads out of your butts. You’re not old. Silas isn’t old. You’re both just acting like it.”
“Silas isn’t old,” I say, which is the part I apparently choose to respond to.
There’s a brief pause on Rowan’s end. “Neither are you, Dad. That’s my point.”
“We have actually run into each other. We’re just about to head out to dinner.”
“See? Told you it’s a small city. Have fun. Eat something good. Don’t spend the whole night talking about work.”
“I won’t.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
He hangs up, leaving me staring at my phone with a smile on my face. I fucking love my boy.
Get your head out of your butt and have some fun.
The kind of fun I’d like to have with Silas isn’t something I can confess out loud to anyone, least of all Rowan.
It lives in a part of my mind I keep closed—a door I’ve been aware of for years and have been equally careful never to open.
Silas is Rowan’s best friend. He’s been in our lives since Rowan went to college and brought his new, older, best friend home as if he’d just rescued a stray animal.
I would never do anything to jeopardize the friendship he and Rowan have. What we all have.
I put my phone in my pocket and go back downstairs.
Silas is waiting in the lobby. “Come on. I’m hungry, and this place might be busy because apparently, it’s the best.”
The restaurant is ten minutes on foot through streets that smell like cold stone and roasting garlic, tucked down a narrow side street behind a door with no sign, just a small light above the frame and the sound of something warm happening inside.
The kind of place that doesn’t need to advertise because the people who know about it tell the people who should.
Inside, it’s small and filled with an amber light that makes me forget about the evening chill outside.
The only thing on the menu is pierogi, and I’m so happy I get to try the Polish specialty that I order one of everything.
Potato and cheese, sauerkraut and mushroom, a duck version the waiter recommends.
And then sweet: strawberry, blueberry, plum, and one that seems to be marked as sweet but has cheese.
The pierogi arrive all at the same time and look extraordinary.
“Tell me something,” Silas says, somewhere between the sauerkraut and the duck.
He’s got that almost-amused expression again, watching me closely.
“Seth. Was that going somewhere interesting?”
I set down my fork. “You know exactly where it was going.”
“Do I?”
“You interrupted it,” I say. “Deliberately, I think.”
“Mm.” He picks up his own fork. “Maybe I did.”
“That’s not a denial.”
“No,” he agrees pleasantly. “It isn’t.”
“Silas.”
“Vaughn.” He leans forward slightly, and his expression shifts into territory that makes the ambient noise of the restaurant feel very far away. “We’re in Europe. We’re a very long way from home. Do you know what that means?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“It means anything is possible,” he says, “when you’re in an impossible place.”
I meet his eyes across the small table, in the amber light, with the smell of good food and the sound of other people’s quiet conversations around us, and I think about doors I’ve kept carefully closed for thirteen years.
I don’t say anything.
Because we can’t. Because there are a hundred reasons we can’t, and they don’t disappear just because we’re in Warsaw and the pierogi is extraordinary and Silas is looking at me like that.
Rowan is reason enough on his own, and Rowan loves Silas like a brother, and I will not be the person who complicates that.
So I say nothing.
Silas seems to know when to push and when to let something breathe, so he picks up his fork and moves on to the next pierogi on the plate.
We stay until the restaurant begins to empty.
We talk about Rowan, about the conference, about a documentary on vertical vegetable growing Silas watched recently and which he describes with way more enthusiasm than I’d expect from someone who’s just confessed to having a single cactus he spies on via a home camera system because he travels so much.
I tell him about the farm, about the research, about the valley in the early morning when the mist is still sitting in the low places. He listens completely, without interruption, like what I’m saying is the only thing happening in the world.
It’s one of the things I’ve always—
I won’t finish that thought.
We walk back through the now-much-cooler streets. At this time of year, Warsaw isn’t much different from where I live in Colorado. Hot in the day with a slight chill at night.
Outside my hotel, we stop.
The city is quiet around us, and he meets my gaze with an expression I can’t read, the one that might be nothing and might be everything.
“Coffee?” I ask. “You could come up.”
The moment stretches just slightly longer than it should.
Then he steps forward and presses a kiss to my cheek. His mouth is warm against my skin, and he stays there for just a breath too long. “Not a good idea,” he says quietly, “when my head is full of bad ones.”
He holds my gaze for one more second.
Then he turns and walks away, his hands in his pockets.
I stand outside the hotel and watch him go.
My cheek is still warm.
I touch it and feel faintly ridiculous, so I go inside.