“Stop pretending you know me better than I know myself,” I say, annoyed. “I didn’t come here to have you judge me.”

“You like her, Brandon. Just admit it.”

“I like her,” I say.

“Not like that.”

“Then like what?” I decide to play dumb, but it’s not much of a stretch. There are shades of meaning here that I get fine, but that I can maybe make Bridget feel ridiculous for presuming I’ll automatically get.

Bridget stands and takes another sip of her water. Her dark-brown hair is back, and two loose strands hang on either side of her face. Her hands go to her hips, and now she looks like the mother we never had, or at least as I understand such things from TV.

“You need a woman in your life.”

“I have women.”

“You need a sensible woman. Someone to ground you.”

“Maybe you’re the one being an idiot. Is your argument seriously that I should ignore all of the girls I’ve dated, and might date, and focus instead on the single woman who will collapse all that I’ve worked for?”

“You don’t know that. And stop being an asshole. She’s not like the others, and you know it.”

That much is true. But whatever I feel when I look at Riley — when I think of Riley — seems arbitrary. Why would she be worth more notice because of the way her dress swirled around her legs that morning on the open land? Why would the first look she gave me, in Mason’s office, be worth more than any other look anyone has ever given me? Why do I dream about her when I’ve had many discussions worth dreaming about? Why do I want so badly to ask about what happened with her mother? I get the gist, and the gist is plenty given the way our relationship would unfold in a reasonable world. So why do I want to know more? It can’t be pleasant. It can’t be a happy story. If I ask Riley to tell me, I know she’ll cry. So why do I want her to cry, and why am I so eager to be the one to comfort her when she does?

It’s because she’s pretty. And forbidden fruit. That’s all it is. Combine animal attraction with something you can’t have, and anyone would feel drawn. But it’s only an impulse. My higher mind knows better. It’s ironic that Bridget, of all people, is usually the first to tell me I’m thinking with my dick. Isn’t that what she’s telling me to do now? To ignore my brain and aim lower?

“When do you go back to work?” I ask.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I thought we were done with the old one.”

“Ha,” Bridget says. “You wish.” 

I actually tip my head a little. Only Bridget can make a conversation sound like a threat.

Bridget hands me my phone, which I’d left on the counter. “Call her.”

“Why?”

“Call her!”

“I’m not going to call her. There’s no reason to call her.”

Bridget shakes her head and rolls her eyes. I manage to see the latter even while she’s doing the former. It’s like a condescension sandwich.

“You came here to talk to me. You told me all about what happened. She came to you, it looked like you might hook up, then she got mad. But only after you each had an idea how the other really felt.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“She defended you to her father, which is why you’re still in the running. You defended her to him, which is why she now has some responsibility. Trust me, Brandon. She was saying thank you, and you were saying she’s special.”

“I think I can decide for myself what I said.”

“You’re like kids. Two stupid kids.”

“Thanks, Bridge.”

“You might as well be passing notes. Jesus, you’re both fucked up.”

“I’m not fucked up.” I pause. “Okay, I’m fucked up. But I still know what I’m saying. I don’t need you to interpret my encounters. I just wanted to check on you and bitch.”

“And yet you told me every detail, just like you yammered on and on about her before dinner. I don’t know why you won’t just admit that you’re into her.”

“I was plenty into her. But I can’t keep screwing my boss’s daughter. And why are you so interested, anyway? You’re a girl. Girls aren’t supposed to be all about getting it on.”

“Yeah. You know so much about women.”

I’m a little offended. I know plenty. I know what women want and what they seem to need. I’ve been with dozens, and have never to my knowledge left one unsatisfied.

Bridget nudges the phone again. “Call her.”

“And say what?”

“Tell her you want to go out.”

“She made a point about how we can’t keep doing what we did. Her father will flip.”

“She needs you to hit the ball back, Brandon. You’re an idiot, so you didn’t volley. You wanted my advice, this — ”

“I very much don’t want your advice.”

“ — is it. All she wanted was some sort of sign that you feel what she feels.”

“She feels ambition.”

Bridget rolls her eyes again. “She came to see you, Brandon.”

“To see my job site.”

“Which she didn’t need to do. And then she stayed behind.”

“To set the record straight. About how we’re through.”

“Do you know how you’re through with someone? It doesn’t take an announcement — you’re just done. That poor girl came to you and put herself out there, but you ignored her.”

Bridget is twisting all of this. She wasn’t there, so she doesn’t know. I know much better than her. Maybe I should describe it all again. I already told her everything we said and did, right down to how Riley was dressed and how her face looked and …

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Call her,” Bridget says. “Just call her, and I’ll leave you alone.”

I pick up the phone. I have Riley’s number because she gave it to me that first night, and I haven’t deleted it because, you know, I might need it sometime. Her contact entry on my phone seems to have pulled her photo from somewhere online, and I look at it for several seconds, remembering how she was that first day, then at dinner, then meeting my lips. In that thing we can’t do again. In those moments we can’t have more of. But that raises a strange sensation within me, and I don’t like the way it feels.

It’s not the sex that’s bothering me.

It’s the dinner. It’s the morning in the meadow.

I realize how much I’ve been thinking about those two intervals of time. How I’d been checking the Overlook’s schedule, more curious than ever to see what its lineup will be when it reopens. Bridget doesn’t love live music, so I guess I’d thought of inviting Mason and Riley, since I know Riley is into that. And maybe Mason wouldn’t want to come. Maybe Riley and I could go alone. And we could grab dinner again. I could make her laugh, and hear that unique kind of vocal music, too.

Something must shift in my expression because when I look up, Bridget is giving me her most obnoxious grin.

“What?” I say, thinking I might already know, afraid of what it might mean.

“Call her,” Bridget repeats, “and take a chance for once in your life.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Riley

I FEEL MY PHONE VIBRATE in my purse, but stepping out of the financial meeting to answer it is the kind of thing a silly teenage girl would do. Having turned the phone entirely off or putting it into Do Not Disturb, I suspect, is what a proper businesswoman would do, but it’s too late for that. So I let the phone vibrate a few times, reasonably sure that nobody besides me is noticing anyway, and eventually it stops. Thirty seconds later, I feel a single vibration and know that the caller left me a message.