Page 40 of Daddy Knows Best

"Single malt. Very sophisticated." I traced patterns in the condensation on my water glass. "Let me guess—you have opinions about ice diluting the flavor profile?"

"Guilty." He leaned back, finally relaxing into his chair. "Also guilty: owning whiskey stones, subscribing to three different coffee roasters, and maintaining a spreadsheet for my vinyl collection."

"Vinyl? Really?" I couldn't hide my delight. "What genres are we talking?"

"Mostly jazz, some classical. But." He glanced around conspiratorially. "Third row down, hidden behind the Coltrane? Complete Backstreet Boys discography."

I nearly choked on my water. "No."

"And *NSYNC. Ninety-Eight Degrees. If they harmonized in the late nineties, I probably own it on 180-gram vinyl."

"Dr. Whitlow had a boy band phase." I pressed my hand to my chest in mock scandal. "I'm shook."

"Just Nate," he corrected gently. "And it wasn't a phase. 'Tearin' Up My Heart' is a perfect pop construction."

Our drinks arrived, and I lifted my elderflower concoction in a toast. "To shocking revelations."

"To new beginnings," he countered, touching his glass to mine.

The mocktail tasted like pure summer. I watched him savor his whiskey, noting how different he looked in soft lighting without fluorescent office overheads. Younger. Less controlled. More like someone I could imagine dancing badly to boy bands.

"Your turn," he said. "Embarrassing college confession."

"Oh God." I buried my face in my hands. "Freshman year, I entered a poetry slam. Thought I was the next Sarah Kay, you know? Wore all black, had this piece about capitalism and coffee shops that used the word 'corporate' seventeen times."

"Seventeen?"

"I counted. It was very important to my artistic vision." I peeked through my fingers. "I forgot half the words on stage and tried to improvise. Rhymed 'systemic oppression' with 'skinny vanilla obsession.'"

His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "Please tell me there's video."

"Burned. Destroyed. Wiped from the internet with extreme prejudice." I lowered my hands, finding him grinning at me with such open warmth it made my chest tight. "What about you? Any public humiliation in the Whitlow archives?"

"Competitive triathlons," he admitted. "Trained for two years, bought all the gear. The wetsuit alone cost more than your return shipments."

"And?"

"Turns out I get seasick in open water. Threw up on a volunteer kayaker during my first race. They had to rescue me five hundred meters from shore."

"No!" I covered my mouth, torn between horror and hilarity.

"The local news ran a segment. 'Investment Banker Nearly Drowns in Lake Michigan.' They got my profession wrong but the humiliation right."

"Investment banker?" I raised an eyebrow.

"The wetsuit was very expensive. I looked the part." He shrugged, self-deprecating in a way I'd never seen. "Sold all the gear and bought therapy textbooks instead. Better investment, as it turns out."

Our entrees arrived—some architectural arrangement of vegetables for me, perfectly seared fish for him. We ate and talked, trading stories that had nothing to do with treatment plans or behavioral contracts. He'd traveled to Japan after undergrad, gotten lost in Tokyo for six hours because he refused to ask for directions. I'd fostered failed kittens in college, naming them after romantic poets until my roommate staged an intervention.

"Byron the cat peed in her closet," I explained. "She said it was poetic justice."

"Terrible pun." But he smiled as he said it.

The ease between us felt dangerous. Like without the structure of therapy holding us in careful formation, we might crash into each other with too much force. Every time his hand moved on the table, I tracked it. When he shifted in his chair, my body responded like a tuning fork.

Dessert arrived in a frozen beeswax shell—honey semifreddo that looked like art and tasted like magic. I was busy photographing it from three angles when I felt pressure againstmy ankle. Nate's boot, deliberate and warm, right against my bee sock.

I looked up to find him watching me with an expression that made my stomach flip. Not clinical assessment. Not professional concern. Just want, simple and undisguised.

---