The One In My Heart

I BROUGHT BENNETT TO A quiet café a few blocks away that served rib-sticking Russian fare. He sat down and dropped his forehead into his palm, his frustration palpable.

He had been so cool and unaffected in front of his parents—the contrast was stark. I’d known that this was important for him: He’d moved across the width of a continent to be in the same city as his parents. But now I understood in my gut just how much he wanted this.

How much he wanted to be home again.

“Thanks for not deserting me,” he said after some time, two fingers pressed against the space between his brows.

I didn’t need him to elaborate to know that he was thinking back on the exchange, trying to process the fact that his father didn’t say a single word to him. Even when Mr. Somerset asked whether we were together, he’d been looking at me, and not his son.

I should probably comment on Mr. Somerset’s aloofness. But I didn’t know him; I only knew Bennett.

“You were too slick,” I said. “There was no way for them to tell whether you still gave a shit about them. If I were the father you’d tried to bring down multiple times, I wouldn’t have relaxed my guard.”

He was silent.

“And don’t forget, you’ve been in town for more than six months without making any attempts to contact them. As far as they know, you’ve written them off completely. I’d take it as an encouraging sign that they both came when they heard you were at the reception.”

He nodded slowly.

I let him be, now that I’d said my piece. We both took out our phones. Multiple text messages were waiting for me, most of them from Zelda, whose concert had just ended.

People keep texting me about seeing you and Bennett together.

What’s this saucy tango involving your date and Damaris Vandermeer?

Is it true? Did you run into Rowland and Frances Somerset?

I texted back.

You knew we were attending together.

Damaris and Bennett used to ballroom dance as partners. Revival performance tonight.

Yes, true. It was all very civil.

I didn’t mention the part about Bennett and me accidentally making out before his parents. I figured they wouldn’t either.

A new text came through from Zelda—The boy can dance—followed by a YouTube link. And when I clicked through, I saw the tango, captured by someone who kept whistling throughout the recording.

We put away our phones when the waiter came with our food.

“Did your mom text your sister, by any chance?” I asked.

“Good guess.”

“Here’s another good guess. Your sister texted you in return and you gave a completely noncommittal answer, along the lines of, ‘Yep, saw them.’”

“Not as accurate. My sister was asking about you, so I waxed poetic about how good you are in bed.”

I gave him a look.

“Fine,” he said, smiling slightly. “How good you are out of bed.”

I dug a spoon into my bowl of borscht. “Any plans for what to do next?”

“Somewhere in my head, I must have assumed that it would be like a movie: Put my parents and me in the same place at the same time, and magically all would be well. But we were all together just now and…” He exhaled. “And nothing has changed.”

I sighed. “Welcome to Life Sucks 101, in which life doesn’t work like movies.”

Or Zelda would get well and never be afflicted again.

He cut into the blinis—buckwheat pancakes—he had ordered. Then his gaze turned to me. “My offer still stands, you know. If you say yes now, I’ll date our agreement retroactively to the day after Christmas, so you get almost a month for free.”

I stole a piece of blini from his plate. “Not that I don’t think you’re a generous man, but almost one-sixth of half a mil is a lot of generosity. What’s the reason for the backdating?”

“My parents are going to the Amalfi Coast to mark their anniversary, which falls on the weekend after your symposium in Munich. If the dates don’t conflict with anything else on your itinerary, will you come with me to Italy?”

This was why I hadn’t wanted to agree to the wedding reception: It gave him another opening to reel me into his scheme. I stirred my soup. “Probably not. I have plans to explore the Bavarian countryside that weekend. ”

“I haven’t gone down on you, have I?” he murmured. “Let it be said I’m willing to devote considerable hours to that particular pleasure.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to betray how turned on I was. “If only your parents knew you were willing to prostitute yourself for them.”

He snorted.

Neither of us said anything for a while. He steadily polished off his blinis. I finished my soup. The waiter came and replenished our tea.

When Bennett was done with his food, he wrapped his hands around a large tea mug and examined a picture on the wall, his profile to me. There was something to the set of his jaw, a resignation that was at once stoic and desolate.