“No, I think I have everything under control.” Faye turned fully, watching Talia as she towel dried her hair. “How was your shower?”
“Mm. Amazing.”
That slight moan from Talia, how her lips curled into a beautiful smile…God, Faye could melt.
“And I think you have the warmest home in the world.” Talia tugged her tank top away from her skin, fanning herself. “Or I’m having some kind of hormonal meltdown.”
“No, you’re not. It does get quite warm in here.” Faye was lying one hundred percent. The reason for the temperature was solely down to Talia. The woman could melt ice caps, she was so hot. “Have a seat at the island. Yours is the bigger portion.”
Talia’s brows rose, a hand splayed across her chest with mock indignation. “O…kay.”
“Oh, Jesus. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” Faye said, wincing. “But I know how hard you’ve been working, and I thought you might be starving.”
Talia offered the most incredible laugh to ever reach Faye’s ears. Is that what heaven sounded like? “Relax. I’m fucking with you.”
Oh, I wish she was fucking with me.Faye spun around, her eyes wide as she focused on the kitchen sink. Thoughts like that shouldn’t be in her mind. Not right now. She was just about ready to combust. Was it possible to have too much Talia in one day? Faye was beginning to believe so.
“So, tell me something about you.” Talia tucked into her ragu, almost inhaling it from the plate.
“I’m not sure there’s much to say.”
Talia moaned as she chewed, and then she swallowed. “Come on. Give me something—anything.”
Faye joined her at the island, pulling herself up onto a stool. This felt alien. She rarely had someone who wasn’t Phoebe over for dinner. But she liked it. Loved it, even. “Hmm. Well, I was married at 25 and divorced at 27.”
“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that.” Talia pointed her fork towards Faye, appearing genuinely shocked. “What kind of idiot divorces you?”
“As wonderful as you are for my self-esteem, not everyone thinks that. My ex-wife certainly didn’t. She couldn’t get away fast enough.”
Talia offered a sympathetic smile. “What happened?”
“The job.”
“Hers or yours?”
Faye pushed her food around the plate. She rarely spoke about Amy. They’d been high school sweethearts, admitted their love for one another at seventeen, and rented their first flat together by nineteen. Amy was supposed to be her happy ending. “Mine.”
“I don’t understand what could possibly create issues from your job. You work from home, and I’m sure you love to travel.”
“It was when things started to go really well for me. Amy didn’t like it. The accolades, the new friends I had in my life… She was suspicious of everyone. If a reader got in touch, she wanted to know who they were, why they were contacting me. She didn’t understand that my stuff was helping people. You know, to come to terms with who they were, to reconnect with an old lover, whatever their reason. She only saw women contacting her wife…and she hated it.”
“Seems kinda controlling to me.”
Faye lifted a shoulder. “It settled down after a while. But then it reared its ugly head again down the line. I didn’t want to fight with her. I just wanted to do what I loved while we created a life together. We’d already been together for eight years when we got married. I just never thought she would turn like that, you know? I thought I knew her.”
“Mm. I thought I knew Megan, too.”
“Megan is the ex you mentioned on Sunday?”
Talia lowered her eyes to her plate, smiling. “This is amazing, by the way.”
Faye narrowed her eyes, scanning Talia’s face as she lifted her head and smiled. “You don’t like to talk about it, do you?”
“No. But I seemed to say more than I expected to you on Sunday.”
“Funny. I don’t talk about Amy either. Yet here I am, discussing her with you.”
That had to mean something to Talia. Surely Faye wasn’t the only person here who felt like they had a connection. An interest in one another. And given the circumstances surrounding how they both came to be single, Faye only felt that connection intensify. She knew better than anyone else what it was like to be hated for doing what you love…by the woman you love.