Page 65 of David

Had it not been for Thea marrying up, David and I would’ve never seen the inside of this room.

“Are you?” I ask, lifting the platter and sliding a couple of eggplant rolls to my plate.

I’m suddenly hungry and not at all concerned with him.

The thing is, all these expectations going unfulfilled affect me as well.All that fantasizing about writing my book and needing some inspiration is beyond ridiculous.

What a joke.

“The rolls are good,” I say around my food. “You’re not hungry?” I murmur, gesturing with my fork at his empty plate.

His eyes shift from being blank to struggling to focus.

“Yeah… No. Eat,” he says before downing his drink.

“Are we in a hurry?” I ask, noticing how quickly he’s emptied his glass.

Maybe I need to fill my stomach and get lost as things go from bad to worse.

“No hurry,” he says, preoccupied, before reaching inside his pocket and retrieving his phone.

His gaze dips as he slides his thumb over the screen to peruse the notifications.

And we’re back to what has been more or less my normal dynamic with men.

They’re always concerned with their phones as if they open a portal to a different world, and their silence is predictable and thicker than concrete.

“I can finish and leave. You don’t need to keep me company,” I say.

Not that this is too much company.

“How come I’ve never seen you before?” he says flatly––not accusatory but not particularly warmly either.

“Maybe you have never noticed me. You looked familiar at the coffee house that day, but I couldn’t place you either.”

He lifts his phone and does the most unusual thing.

He powers it off before sliding it onto a wall table nearby without showing it too much love.

That’s unexpected.

“You probably didn’t see me because I’m not a regular at James Sexton’s house. We didn’t have the opportunity to meet.”

I run a napkin over my lips.

“You seem disappointed,” I point out.

“I’m not.”

His gaze trails down as he leans back in his seat.

“You’re no longer interested in me,” I add.

His neutral expression dissolves, and a smile tugs at his lips. A bit pensive and softer.

“What else do you know about me?” he asks.

“Everything that matters.”

---