“You’re not going to believe this house,” Anthony said as we rolled our luggage towards our gate. “Tahoe’s incredible. Skiing in the winter, boating and hiking in the summer.”
Anthony’s mentor Leonard, one of the partners in his firm, invited us to his mountain house for the long Memorial Day weekend. It was our first trip away together. “So he’s got two big homes, one here and one in Tahoe?”
“I don’t know if I’d call the one in Tahoe big. It’s more like a chalet. But the view is unreal.” He stretched out his arm, setting the scene for me. “Imagine the sun coming down over the mountains and reflecting on the water. It’ll take your breath away.”
“That must have cost a pretty penny.”
“What he paid is nothing compared to what it’s worth now. There’s a reason I worked so hard to impress Leonard when I first got to the firm. I wanted to work on his projects to learn from the best. The guy rarely makes a poor investment. This little chalet has probably quadrupled in value since he bought it. It’s become quite the asset.”
It was only an asset on paper, I thought to myself, but it must be costing them a fortune to maintain. Still, I bit my tongue, knowing this would only annoy Anthony. Instead, I said, “It’s awfully nice for him to have us over.”
“Sure is.” Anthony caressed my cheek. “That’s really what all this money is for in the end, isn’t it? Getting to share it with family and friends.”
Anthony had asked his question rhetorically and didn’t wait for an answer. But it got me wondering: what was money for?
“Flight B168 to Tahoe is now open for boarding,” a flight attendant announced.
Anthony filled the silence during takeoff with chatter about his latest trip to Germany, where his firm was investing in a robotics company. I barely paid attention while images flashed through my mind: Dylan’s Crypt, Libby’s new house, my father in his hospital bed, Anthony’s Porsche. Money was at the center of all this, but did that bring me any closer to understanding the true purpose of money? Did I even get the basics, such as how much I should make, should spend, should invest?
A flight attendant bringing us drinks interrupted Anthony’s flow. I took advantage of the pause and blurted out, “Anthony, what’s your approach to taxes?”
“Where’d that come from?”
“I met this guy this week. He’s also Italian, actually.”
“Met him where?”
“At a seminar. Though he walked out after a half-hour, and I followed to pick his brain. We wound up getting lunch.”
“Oh yeah? Where’d you go?”
“Giovanni’s.”
“Giovanni’s?” Anthony gave me a look. “Who picked up the bill?”
“He did.”
“Let me get this straight. You went out to lunch. With a guy. At the best Italian place in town. And I’m supposed to believe you talked about...taxes?”
“Oh, don’t get all jealous on me. Vinny asked me out, and I made it very clear to him that I was taken.” I put my hand on Anthony’s arm. “Besides, there’s no way I’d date this guy.” I held my hands out like a shield. “He wears enough hair grease to support a salon for a year.”
Anthony relaxed a bit when I insulted Vinny. “Taxes, eh?”
“Yeah. It’s cool stuff.” Just having the chance to talk this out with someone who understood finance would help me digest it. “The guy doesn’t pay a cent in taxes despite making a killing in real estate.”
“Amber, honey. I hear you’re all excited. And I get it. For a teacher who doesn’t make much, taxes are a painful hit.”
“Exactly!”
Anthony put down his soda and patted my hand. “But it’s time to stop worrying about your current financial challenges, and start thinking about where you’re headed.”
“Oh?” I pulled my hand away. “And where am I headed?”
“To Tahoe for one. This weekend you’re going to get a glimpse at the life we can build together. Trust me, a guy like Leonard spends next to no time worrying about his taxes. He hires the best tax attorneys and accountants in the state, and he leaves everything in their hands.”
“But Vinny kept telling me that there’s only so much any of these tax specialists can help after you make your money.”
“Are you saying I should change my profession so I can earn money in some tax-sheltered way?”
“No, of course not.”
“Look, Amber. I’ve met people like this Vinny. They shoot themselves in the foot. They get so myopic about saving on taxes that they miss out on killer opportunities.”
“Like how?”
“Like when I was trading stocks after college. I knew guys who bought these plodding, loser stocks, but they still insisted on holding them for over a year to save on taxes. What’s the point? For me, I preferred to find something that was on fire, get in, make my money, and get out. Did I pay more in taxes than they did? Absolutely. But who cares? Even after paying my taxes, I still made two to three times what these other guys did. For me, taxes are just a cost of doing business.”
It hit me then how unfair I was being. Anthony was willing to take on the burden of making a great living for both of us. Was I going to second guess how he spent it or what tax strategies he preferred? I knew I’d been a bit of a cold fish lately. I took his hand in mine and leaned over to kiss him. “I’m so excited,” I said, making sure to play up the enthusiasm in my voice. “I’ve never been to Tahoe before.”
“You’re going to love it.” Anthony gave me the biggest smile I’d seen on his face in weeks. “Trust me.”
Anthony had called Leonard’s Tahoe house a chalet. I didn’t have the first clue what distinguished a house from a chalet. After getting the grand tour from Leonard’s wife, Heather, I wondered if the term chalet referred to a five-bedroom wooden mountain house with an entire wall made of glass to show off views of the lake and surrounding mountains. If so, you could put me down for one.
Initially, they’d put the two of us together in the guest room. But when I told Heather I’d prefer a room of my own, she had her housekeeper Juanita make it up for me.
Leonard took Anthony out to the deck. I sat on a barstool at the counter while Heather glided through the kitchen, gathering up ingredients. “I’m obsessed with this drink. We first had it at the last partner’s retreat. Now it’s a must in my house.” She pulled strawberries and basil leaves from the fridge and pulled down a bottle of bourbon from a top cabinet.
“Were you a dancer?” I asked.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Your posture and the way you move.”
“I did six years with the American Ballet Company.” She laid everything on the counter in a neat row and pulled her perfectly highlighted hair into a bun. “I stepped down when I got married. And, of course, I’ve never moved the same since having kids. These days, I feel like I stomp through the house with the grace of a water buffalo.”
“I have several aunts who could take pointers from a water buffalo. Trust me, you move nothing like them.”
Heather held out a knife and cutting board to me. “I hear you’re quite the whiz in the kitchen.”
“You heard that from Anthony?” Other than bringing him a handful of fresh chocolate chip cookies on one of our dates, I’d never actually cooked for him, despite his many hints he’d like me to.
“Well, from Leonard, but it’s the same thing. Of course, the only thing Leonard can cook is barbecue. Funny how when it’s outside over fire, cooking suddenly becomes a man’s job.”
“Indeed. Though my father also made a mean Caesar salad.” I minced the basil with the chef’s knife, drawing appreciative looks from Heather. I could never match her grace on her feet, but the kitchen was my wheelhouse. “How often do you come out here?” I asked.
Heather washed off the strawberries. “As much as I can.”
“In the winter, too?”
“Winter’s our favorite. The skiing’s great. Ever since my daughter Jenna first started racing competitively, we had to come out just about every weekend so she could be on the team.”
“Really? Leonard can get away that often?”
Heather laughed. “As the wife of a venture capitalist, you never schedule your life around your husband’s availability. He shows up when he can, but we have to make allowances. Without his work, we’d never have this lifestyle.”
I’d always hated it as a kid when my dad was in the middle of a case and had to work weekends. “Where are your kids, anyway?”
“Jenna boards at a ski school in Vail. Collin’s off on a sailing trip with his buddies.” She cut the greens off the strawberries and threw them into her blender. “The recipe calls for sugar, but a beekeeper delivers liquid gold to my door.” She poured a stream of honey onto the strawberries.
“You don’t look old enough to have your kids out of the house.”
“Don’t let your eyes fool you. A little nip here, a tuck there, and ten years disappear in the blink of an eye. But the kids aren’t all that old themselves. Jenna’s fourteen and Collin’s sixteen.”
My parents never let me or my siblings get that far from home at those ages. “It doesn’t bother you having them away?”
“Are you kidding me? I worked for years getting them this independent.” Heather poured the blended strawberry mush into a saucepan and stirred it over the stove. Her jeans and cashmere blouse were casual but clearly didn’t come off the sales rack. Everything about her looked relaxed and easy, as though she didn’t have a care in the world. I bet she never had to worry about her sauce burning on the stove. Juanita probably looked over that while Heather sipped her wine and did whatever rich ladies did with their time.
But something tugged at my insides. I scanned the house, the mountain view, the orange light of the setting sun glinting off the lake. It didn’t feel anything like the Memorial Day weekends I grew up with. I’d spent the previous one at my parent’s house. Both of my sisters came in with their families. It was an unusually warm day, so Donny, Johnny, and little Marie chased each other around with water guns. Jack sprayed the grill so much, he put out the fire, and my father got so mad he tackled the kid to the ground and tickled him to pieces. The other children piled on top of the pair, and they all rolled around the yard like puppies. Melissa and Bobby were doing the typical ‘I’m too cool for my family’ stance, smoking what I hoped was only tobacco behind the garage and checking their phones every two minutes.
This place felt so…quiet.
“This smells so good!” Heather took the strawberry syrup off the stove, ran it through a sieve into a pitcher, and threw in a couple of ice cubes. “The key ingredient,” she held up her pointer finger, “is bitters. But I don’t use that junk they sell in town.” She grabbed an unlabeled mason jar from the liquor cabinet. “The bartender at the Ritz Carlton gave me a private lesson. My bitters have juniper berries, mint, and rose hips, all which grow wild here in the mountains.”
Heather placed the pitcher, some glasses, a box of crackers, and a round of brie onto a serving tray, and led me out to the deck.
“That girlie drink again?” Leonard asked as soon as he saw the pitcher. He turned to Anthony. “This pink thing’s just a sweet dressing over my favorite bourbon. Why don’t we put some hair on our chest with the real deal?”
“Whatever the boss says,” Anthony replied with a grin.
“Two bourbons coming right up.” Heather leaned in toward me on her way back inside and whispered, “More for us.”
I sat next to Anthony, feeling like an intruder on the men’s conversation. Rather than sit in awkward silence, I blurted out, “It’s beautiful out here.”
“Sure is,” Leonard replied. “You can credit the Almighty for the view, but Heather for the house.”
“She designed it herself?”
“Hardly.” Heather stepped back outside with the two bourbons. “I just touched it up a bit.”
“If you could call a gut job a touch-up,” Leonard said.
“Anyway,” Heather continued, “I’m no designer. But the guy I brought in is fabulous.”
“And fabulously expensive,” Leonard added. “I had to fly him in from San Francisco.”
“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Heather said to me. “He feels honor-bound to bemoan the cost, but the truth is there’s nowhere in the world where he’s happier, and he wouldn’t have the house any other way. Am I right?”
“Happy wife, happy life,” Leonard replied.
They both seemed as comfortable in this exchange as a worn-in shoe, and I suspected they were going through the motions of a debate they’d had dozens of times before. “Do you see yourselves moving out here year-round when you retire?” I asked.
“Retire? Who would want to retire from the greatest job in the world?” He winked at Anthony. “I’ll be playing VC roulette till they carry me out feet first.”
By the time the moon was overhead, Heather and I had finished the cocktail, and the men were on their fifth bourbons. Leonard and Anthony toyed around on the putting green at the edge of the property like drunken sailors.
“So how serious is this?” Heather nodded in Anthony’s direction.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.” I reclined on my chair with my feet up.
“Well, if you want to be with a guy who’s going somewhere, you couldn’t do better. I’ve only seen Leonard take a few guys under his wing like he has with Anthony, and all the others made partner.”
A guy who was going somewhere. Was that what I wanted? “I have no doubt Anthony will be a financial success.”
“So what doubts do you have? Is he not good in—”
Even with nothing but liquor and a handful of crackers in my belly, I was so not going there. “He’s a good guy. He’d take good care of me. And our kids. I know he would.”
“But something is holding you back.”
Heather looked so elegant bathed in the moonlight on her deck in the mountains. She looked born for this life. Would she understand my hesitation at all? Part of me wanted to blow off her questions with pat answers. After all, I didn’t know this woman, and anything I said was likely to reach her husband’s ears and then Anthony’s. On the other hand, who else could help me understand what it would mean to be married to a venture capitalist as she could? “I’m struggling with the lifestyle,” I admitted.
“I’m not surprised. I used to struggle as well.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I mean, I grew up comfortable, but nothing like this. When I was dancing, I lived four girls to a two-bedroom to get by. I used to think there was something romantic and enlightened about being poor.”
“Not anymore?”
“Fortunately, two of my best friends got married before I did and quickly disavowed me of that belief.”
“What happened to them?”
“One married a school teacher. They do OK, especially now that their kids are older, and she’s back to work, but money is a constant stress for them.”
“And the other?”
“Her marriage only lasted three years, but she managed to have two kids in that span. Her ex disappeared on her; I don’t even think he’s still in the country, so she gets nothing for child support. She’s had to take on a part-time job in addition to her full-time job, and she still barely has enough to provide for herself and her kids. Don’t tell Leonard, but I slip her a bit of money every month.”
“So the romance over poverty…”
“Left in a hurry when confronted with reality,” Heather said. “I realize now how immature a belief that was. Think about it, do you want your kids learning from an overwhelmed teacher in an underfunded school? Or do you want them learning from the best, with a small student to teacher ratio, in a school with top-notch facilities? I’m not one of those parents who buys BMWs when their kids turn 16, but I want them having the best teachers, coaches, and equipment.”
The school comment hit home. As good as a teacher as I tried to be, there was only so much attention I could give each kid when I had to deal with 30 at a time. And little though I liked to admit it, the biggest trouble makers got the most attention. The best kids, the ones engaged and eager to learn, could advance far faster with a more present and less frazzled teacher.
“Don’t you get lonely with Leonard working so much?”
“Look, growing up, my dad was home by 5:30 every night. We ate together as a family, and he and my mom watched TV together until bedtime. I get that vision. I do. But…”
“But what?”
“But you adapt. You build a life that works for you.”
“You don’t mind being alone so much?”
“Amber, I’m only alone when I choose to be. I know you’re picturing it as lonely, but that’s just because right now it’s only you and Anthony, and when he’s gone, it’s just you. But it’s not going to remain that way.”
“Because you’ve got kids?”
“Kids are part of it. But no matter who you marry and what he does, recognize you’ll still have your own life. You’ll go to the gym, have lunch with friends, and pursue whatever passions you have. For me, I’m still dancing, and I love the theater. With time and money in abundance, you can design the life you want.”
“Well, sure, when the kids are grown up like yours, I imagine you have plenty of time.”
“I have more time now, no question, but with a guy like Anthony, you’ll have time even when they’re little. I told you about my two friends. Both used to complain about how exhausted they were. One friend used to complain incessantly about how early her kids woke up.”
“Your kids slept in?”
“I have no idea. By the time I woke up, they were dressed and ready for school. We ate breakfast together without all that early morning stress.”
“Does Leonard ever resent the fact that he works so hard while you have it so easy?”
“Are you kidding? I make sure that when he’s here, he feels like a king in his palace. Not that men are so hard to satisfy. As long as I keep his bed warm and his belly full, he’s thrilled.”
“And you don’t miss Leonard when he takes these long work trips?”
“Honestly…” Heather cupping her hand around her mouth as if telling a giant secret, but the men themselves were so drunk, loud, and far away, she would have had to scream to be overheard. “In some ways, I prefer it when he’s gone.”
“Really?”
“Sure. When he’s here, I have to make sure Juanita has dinner ready on time. I’ve gotta watch football. I’ve gotta listen to all that VC chatter and pretend I care about the latest financial crisis in Kuala Lumpur.” She rolled her eyes. “Plus, he misses me so much while he’s gone...” Heather’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m well rewarded when he returns.”
I finally made it to my bedroom after midnight. Skiing posters covered the walls, and a bookcase overflowed with trophies. A package with a purple bow lay on the bed. Inside, I found a skimpy red nighty. Still dressed, I held it up against me and looked in the mirror. It was my size. Not that it covered much of me. You’d have to double the amount of material to properly blow your nose with it.
I hadn’t laid down the law with Anthony quite as clearly as I had with Dylan, but I’d still avoided any real intimacy. That wasn’t difficult, as Anthony was ever the gentleman. He’d never pushed to come in when dropping me off after our dates. But this was something different, this was a weekend away together. He told me how important it was to him that I meet his mentor. He told me how this trip, more than anything we’d done so far, would help me understand the type of life that he and I could build together. And so far, he was right. My conversation with Heather had left me plenty to think about. But I also knew in my gut that this trip was something more, that he’d come to think of it as a romantic getaway.
I should have been crystal clear that I was not yet ready for commitment, which meant that I was not yet ready for intimacy. I knew from experience that once sex comes in, my brain leaves the station. But I hadn’t been clear. I hadn’t stood my ground. I’d bitten my tongue so as not to push him away. I saw him getting rankled when I asked for my own room, but of course, he couldn’t visibly protest in front of his mentor. Had his brains been stronger than his hormones, he would have caught on then that it was not the right moment for this gift. But gentleman though he was, at his core he was still a guy. He expected me to put this skimpy thing on, and then he expected to come in for a visit.
I immediately locked the door to my room. Then I changed into my sweatpants and t-shirt and slipped into bed. Sure enough, not ten minutes later, I heard a hand try the door. No knock, no nothing. He jostled the knob, found it locked, gave up, and walked away.
The next two days were jam-packed with activities. Saturday, we sailed on Leonard’s 34-foot catamaran. On Sunday, Heather and I went for a hike while the men golfed, then we met them for lunch, followed by an outdoor concert. Anthony was pleasant and affable as always, but there was a coldness about him, a distance that hadn’t been there before. I continued to lock my bedroom door at night, but it wasn’t necessary. He didn’t try the knob again, at least not that I heard.
It wasn’t until Monday that we were alone. Or almost alone. Leonard and Heather had an earlier flight home than we did. So after long, gracious goodbyes, we found ourselves in the house with just Juanita, the housekeeper.
Anthony, who’d been so amiable in front of our hosts, grew sullen. We’d all had casual drinks earlier, but now Anthony served himself a double scotch. I didn’t know what to do, so I left him on his own and went to pack. When I returned to the great room, I found him staring out the window, but the look on his face told me he wasn’t taking in the view.
“All this isn’t good enough for you, is it?” His eyes locked on mine. “The house. The yacht. All of it. Somehow it still isn’t good enough for you?”
I didn’t know whether to approach him or keep my distance, so I just stood awkwardly in between. “What are you talking about? I think it’s all wonderful.”
“Oh, I see.” He drained his scotch. “Then it’s me that isn’t good enough?”
“Anthony, I think you’re a great guy.”
“Then why did you lock your door Friday night?”
My hands twisted around each other. “I told you early on, I don’t want to get intimate until I know—.”
“Until you know this is going somewhere. Yeah, I remember.” The muscles in Anthony’s jaw tensed. “Yet, somehow, even after six months, you’re not sold.”
“First of all, six months with you is only like a month with a normal guy since you’re hardly ever around.” My right hand squeezed around my left fingers. “Secondly, this is a choice I’m trying to make for life, so I’m damned well going to take my time.”
“Still,” Anthony stood to face me. “After everything I’ve done for you.”
“Everything you’ve done for me?” The squeeze got tighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I take you out to all the nicest places in town. I buy you gifts. I call you when I’m on trips. But what do you give me in return?” He refilled his glass. “Nothing. You don’t give me any affection. You don’t even cook for me.”
“Anthony…”
“And that’s another thing. I told you to the business world, I’m Anthony. But my real name, the name my family calls me, the name I want my wife to call me, is Tony.” His Italian accent came out in full force as his voice grew agitated. “But you always call me Anthony, like you’re telling me you never want to get too close.”
“That’s not why…”
“Heather appreciates all Leonard does for her. When he’s here, she treats him like a king. I promise you, she’s never locking the bedroom door.” He stepped forward. A mixture of hurt and anger colored his expression. “But whatever I do for you is never enough.”
“Enough for what?”
He stamped his foot. “For you to give anything in return.”
“So that’s what this weekend was about? So you could show me just how good the Anthony gravy train gets? So you could show me you’re headed for big things? Because you think if your star gets bright enough, I’ll want to come along for the ride?”
“Isn’t that why you keep asking me all these questions? What retirement planning I’ve done? What my tax strategies are?”
“You think it’s because I doubt you?” Now it was my turn to get loud. “I just want to understand what’s going on.”
“Why’s that so damn important? You think my mother ever pried into my father’s tax strategy? You think she ever second-guessed his retirement plans?” Scotch spilled from his glass. “She married a good guy who promised to take care of the family, and she left it in his hands. And she was appreciative.”
“Yeah? You know what that sounds like?” I gritted my teeth to hold back hot tears.
“What?”
“It sounds exactly like my mother. But then at 58 years old, she gets a message that her husband is lying on the floor of the courtroom because his heart stopped after working himself to the bone for 35 years. And rather than just taking care of him and encouraging him to stay home, she has to help him get healthy as soon as possible so he can go back to work.” My voice rose to a feisty pitch. “So he can keep killing himself. Because if he can’t somehow crank out ten more years, neither of them can retire. At least not without taking a huge hit to their lifestyle, which they refuse to do because they’ve grown so used to pampering themselves, they can’t imagine going without!”
“Pampering?” Anthony’s hands flew up in exasperation. “So that’s why you’re so unimpressed by all this? You consider it pampering?”
“Unimpressed? How can you say that?”
“Because you don’t feel even the slightest desire to give anything in return.”
I’d also thought about how little I gave to Anthony. Why didn’t I ever feel like cooking for him? Why did I hold back from intimacy? It’s not like with Dylan, where I doubted his ability to provide for a family. So what was my hesitation? “You’re right. You are. And I’m finally ready to make a real change.”
Anthony looked up, with the first glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m finally ready to call you Tony.”
“Great.” Anthony rolled his eyes. “Way to make my day.”
“You know why I called you Anthony until now?”
“Why?”
“Because I’d never actually met Tony.” My hands dug into my hips. “But here he is, out in the open at last.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Anthony is all spit and polish. It’s the face you put out to the world. And as much as you wanted me to call you Tony, so far, you’ve only shown me Anthony.”
“And now?”
I studied him like a model on a runway. “Now I’m starting to see beneath your shiny exterior. The Italian accent is finally coming out in your voice. You know what the difference is between you and Vinny?”
“What?”
“He doesn’t try to impress anyone. He says whatever he wants because he doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks. But you, you’re so busy kissing ass that the real you never comes out.”
“That’s not fair, Amber.”
“Isn’t it? If you were so pissed about me locking my door Friday night, why did it take you two days to say anything?”
“I didn’t want to make a scene. I figured I’d wait till we were alone.”
“We’re not alone.” I pointed towards the kitchen. “You don’t think Juanita hears every word of this?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“It’s exactly what you mean. She doesn’t count because she’s the help. But before a partner, you have to put on the perfect face. You want to know why I haven’t gone all gaga over you?” Only as I was shouting the words did I realize how true they were. “Because I’ve never met the real you. Until now. And let me tell you, Tony is hardly making a strong impression.”
“So that’s it? You’re ready to kick me to the curb?”
“I’m not the one who raised this big stink. I’m just trying to take my time. To figure out what I want. And the more I understand what you want, the more I question whether it’s for me.”
Anthony puffed out his chest. “What do you think I want?”
“Some pampered Queen who dotes on her King. Some Italian version of Heather, who will dutifully await your return from Singapore with a bowl of hot fettuccine and a roll in the hay.”
Anthony grinned. “Sounds pretty good, actually.”
“I’m sure it does. To you.”
“Would such a life be so bad? We’d have family, kids. We’d live well. We’d have help. We’d have a gorgeous home. Amazing vacations. Why do you spit on all this? Isn’t financial stability worth something?”
“Of course. But to me, financial stability doesn’t just come from earning more so you can spend more. That’s why I kept asking you about retirement and taxes.” Only then did I realize how much Dylan’s perspective had made its mark on me. “I’d rather have less but build a more solid foundation.”
“All this is solid.” Anthony knocked against a wooden beam. “Do you have any idea how many businesses Leonard owns a part of? How much property he owns? He’s ten years younger than your dad, but if he had a heart attack tomorrow, his family would be set for life.”
“Anthony, you keep trying to show me how high you can climb up the corporate ladder, as if I doubt how far you can go.” I could see where we were headed, and it knocked the fight out of me. “Maybe the problem is, I’m just looking for a different ladder.”
“What does that mean?”
I approached him, trying to soften the blow. “I mean, I want a guy who can provide, but I don’t think a guy who can provide ten times as much is ten times the man. I’d rather have one house with a guy who will be home each day and play with his kids, than two houses and a guy who’s gone all the time.”
“So that’s it then? I’m not what you want?”
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to get my head around it.” I took his hand. “I think one reason I haven’t offered to cook for you was that I was afraid of what happened Friday night, that if I had you over for dinner, you’d get all kinds of thoughts about dessert.”
He stared at my hand, and his head hung low. “I probably would have.”
