Page 56 of The Devil She Knows
“I’ll have the miso carbonara, extra Parmesan, please.” Daphne smiled. “And—Tom.”
She snapped her fingers and Tom jerked, startling as if he’d been woken from a deep sleep. “Huh? What?” He looked around, a little frantic, then slunk back in his seat with a sheepish smile. “I’m so sorry. I—I must have zoned out for a second. What’s happening?”
“We’re ordering.”
“Oh, uh.” He looked at Hannah’s plate. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The waiter nodded and left to put in their orders.
Daphne leaned her elbow on the table, eyes flitting from Hannah to Sam and back. “So, tell me—was it love at first sight?”
Sam took a measured sip of her whisky. “That’s not really any of your business.”
“Sam.” Hannah looked at her pointedly. “Be nice.”
Be nice?This woman was a menace, and Hannah was telling her tobe nice?
“Thisisme being—” She huffed. “Fine. You want to know if it was love at first sight? Of course it was.”
“Well, go on. Tell me about it. I am nothing but ears.”
This was ridiculous. Daphne didn’tcare. Sam wasn’t entirely convinced she was even capable of love, so her sudden interest in Sam and Hannah’s love story was suspect at best. At worst? Sam didn’t even want to go there.
Daphne was needling her, to what end she didn’t know, and she wasn’t keen on finding out.
“Fine.” Sam sighed, and when she closed her eyes, it wasn’t hard to conjure up the phantom feeling of those first butterflies. “We were—”
Wait. What if their meet-cute was different now that Sam was different, now that she was everything Hannah wanted in a partner personified? What if she and Hannah had met in some—some fancy bar or on vacation somewhere like Aspen or in the Maldives? Hannah was going to look at her like she’d lost her mind if she started waxing poetic about the olive oil aisle at Zabar’s.
But—and maybe it was a gamble, but she’d gotten pretty comfortable with gambling of late—she liked to think that in any universe, no matter how she and Hannah met, she’d have still felt those same butterflies the moment their eyes locked. She might be different—thinner and more conventionally attractive and just plainbetter—but not that.
“The moment our eyes met, it was just this instant and intense connection.”
She’d lost her breath, and her knees had gone rubbery. Her heart had felt like it was trying to beat its way out of her chest and hurl itself at Hannah. And looking into Hannah’s eyes, it had been like seeing her entire life laid out ahead of her. A life with Hannah. Their life, one they could build. A future they could make together.
“Are you sure you didn’t just want to …” Daphne held up two fingers on each hand and mimed cutting the air like they were scissors—
“No! Stop that!” It wasn’t lust, wasn’tjustlust. It was more than that. It was … it was a connection. “When you know, you just know.”
“Huh.” Daphne sounded skeptical. “No offense, but that sounds like a load of horseshit to me.”
Of course it did.
“See, I think love at first sight is either a lie we’re told, or a lie we’re telling someone else. Either way, it’s notreal. At best, it’s projection. You’re only seeing what you want to see. It takes time to actually get to know a person. Factor in how most people are on their best behavior when they start dating someone and it takes even more time for the shine to wear off and someone’s true colors to show.” Daphne stole Sam’s whisky and pressed her lips to the rim of the glass right where Sam’s mouth had been. “Personally, I’m of the mind that you should never be anything but your truest self. No, actually, scratch that. I think when you meet someone, you should be theworstversion of yourself. All your bad habits, everything that’s ever gotten under anyone’s skin who’s ever spent any discernible timearound you, you should lean into, dial it all up to the nth power. Let your freak flag fly, you know?” She shrugged. “If they can’t stand the heat, they better get out of the kitchen.”
“Let your freak flag fly?” Sam scoffed. “You’re good at that, I bet.”
Hannah gasped. “Sam—”
“Oh, sweetheart, you havenoearthly idea.” Daphne smirked, and with her distinctly forked tongue, which no one seemed to notice, no one seemeddisturbedby, lapped up a drop of whisky from her bottom lip.
Heart hammering and her stupid mouth suddenly impossibly dry, Sam snatched the glass out of Daphne’s hand and tossed back what was left of her drink.
“You want to know what I think?” She set the glass down with a thunk, relishing the way the whisky burned. “I think that sounds like a textbook avoidant attachment style.”
“Ooh, gird your loins, everybody.” Daphne held up her hands in mock terror. “We’ve got an armchair psychologist in the house with us tonight.”
“Not that this isn’t a riveting conversation,” Hannah said, dragging the tines of her fork through the dressing on her plate, the metal on bone china making an awful, shrill noise. “But don’t you—”
