“I’m in LA for a couple weeks,” he says, laughing. “Actually, some of my colleagues left for Los Angeles two days ago. I was delayed but will meet them there.” He sips his drink. “And now your turn. How are your parents?”
“They’re fine,” I say. “They’re in Europe until next week.”
He narrows his eyes, nodding. “They traveled a lot? Wasn’t your dad a diplomat? Am I remembering that right?”
“Close. He works for the State Department. Mom travels with him as much as she can.” I don’t add that this is Mom’s first trip since Spence and I broke up, that she basically put her life on hold to help me pick up my pieces. I wash the weird catch in my throat down with a sip of wine. “Did you ever meet them?”
“Once or twice when I was picking Sunny up at your house. If I recall, your father is very tall, and your mother is—”
“Very not tall?” I nod, laughing. My father is six-foot-four. My mother is well over a foot shorter. “I was always hoping to get his height, but…” I gesture to myself. “I’m the person who always makes sure the doctor writes down five-foot-three and a half on my chart.”
He smiles at me and licks his lips distractingly. So distractingly, in fact, that it takes me a second to process his next question. And then my heart takes a nosedive off a cliff.
“No,” I finally manage. “I’m not married.…”
The way I’ve said it—trailing off, with a grimace—clearly leaves the impression that there’s a story there. Shit. Why did I do that? The last thing I want to do is talk about Spence tonight, not with Alec sitting across from me looking the way he does.
He nods, brows slowly rising, and I guess I have to explain my weird answer. “I’m about six months out of a long-term relationship. Rough breakup, and he took most of our friends with him.”
“Ah.” He sips his whiskey again. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Fidgeting, I pull my hair up and he watches my fingers quickly twirl it and tuck it into a bun. My hair is stick straight and dry now, and I feel a few strands escape and brush against my neck. He tracks that movement, too. “It really should have ended sooner.”
Alec watches me, his gaze unswerving. “What happened?”
We stare at each other for a few wordless moments before my smile breaks free.
“Are we really doing this?” I ask. “The below-the-surface catch-up?”
“Why not?” His answering smile is sly and playful. “We’ve covered work and family. Will we ever see each other again?” He’s talking about sharing our stories, but I sense another dare below the surface—a heated one.
“He fucked up,” I say baldly.
Alec’s expression shifts. “With you?”
I like the way he says this. Disbelieving, like he can’t fathom it.
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I tell him.
I’ve only really talked about this with three people: my parents and my best friend, Eden. Not only because our mutual friends all decided I was overreacting and should give Spence another chance, but also because it’s deeply mortifying to realize that I’m a journalist whose boyfriend buried the lede every day for nearly a year. It seems weird to launch into the story with a near-stranger. But I am. Because I’m here with Alec—whom it oddly feels like I know, even though I don’t, and I’ve seen, even though I haven’t—and I’m tired but don’t want to go to sleep yet now that he and I are talking about something real.
“He lost his job because he got caught stealing company clients for his own freelance business and undercutting his firm’s rates. But he never told me. He kept leaving every morning, dressed for work, and coming home every night feigning exhaustion. He made up stories about drama between coworkers, gripes and promotions that I totally believed. Slowly drained his savings until he had nothing, then started dipping into mine.”
Alec goes still. “And your friends took his side?”
“He’s very charismatic,” I explain. Spence’s eye-crinkling smile appears in my thoughts, his infectious laugh echoes in my ears, and I feel the familiar urge to climb out of my own skin. “The quintessential good guy, you know? I’m sure he gave them a bunch of shiny half-truths, made himself out to be the victim. I cut him out completely; they didn’t. But they weren’t living with him. He wasn’t lying to their faces every morning and every night. I guess it was easier for them to find sympathy.”
“How did you find out?”
“I realized something was off when my bank statements seemed low. I followed him to work. He was going to the park and sleeping. At home, while I slept, he was up all night gambling, trying to make money.”
Alec laughs incredulously. “Is that a thing?”
“Not the way Spencer was doing it.”
He laughs again, but this time it turns sympathetic at the tail end. “I’m sorry, Georgia.”
“Yeah.” I finish my wine and nod when he signals for another round. “It sucked.”