Page 20 of Second Dance
After he left, I said to Alex, “My girlfriends and I are in here at least once a week. In fact we were here last night. When they talked me into messaging you back.”
He looked slightly hurt. “Was it a question?”
“Mostly because Grace put my profile on the site without me knowing, not because it wasn’t good to hear from you.” I held his gaze, wanting him to understand. “I simply wasn’t sure what to do.”
“It’s a strange situation. But I’m glad you responded.” The warmth in his voice made my stomach flutter.
As he scooped some hummus onto his plate, I let myself really look at him. He was even better looking than he’d been fourteen years ago. His dark complexion had aged well, and he still had a thick head of dark hair. His eyes were just as kind as they’d been back then, but now a sadness dimmed their light slightly. I wanted to reach across the table and smooth away the grief etched in the corners of his mouth.
“Do you remember the day we met?” Alex asked, his voice pulling me from my thoughts.
“Of course I do. That coffee shop on 83rd. I looked up and there you were.” The memory was so vivid I could almost smell the coffee, feel the summer heat through the windows.
“You were so beautiful, sitting there, so innocent.” He wasn’t looking at the past suddenly. No, he was looking at me and only me with an intensity that made my breath catch. “I thought in that moment—this is the girl I’m going to marry.”
My throat tightened. “You were wrong about that.”
The words fell between us like stones. For a moment neither of us moved, the weight of all the years—all the paths not taken—heavy between my shoulder blades.
“Those months that summer were some of the best of my life,” Alex said quietly.
“For me too.” I had to pause, had to push past the constriction in my chest. “Perhaps it was like that because we knew it had a shelf life. We knew at the end of that summer you’d go back to Boston to finish school. I’d continue at the academy in Manhattan. Maybe that’s why it felt so fun and easy. We knew it would end.”
“I was too young and stupid to realize how rare it is to fall in love so hard and so fast. Or to find someone as extraordinary as you.”
He held my gaze. In fact, I couldn’t look away from him.
“I was waking up to your smile one minute and changing Grace’s diapers the next.”
“We had no choice but to part ways,” Alex said. “I had no permanent job and another year of college to pay for. There was no way I could take care of a family.”
“I knew that. I mean, we were so young.”
“Did you ever think about me?” He leaned forward again, his voice dropping. “Wonder what became of me?”
“I did. I thought about looking you up a thousand times.” The confession felt dangerous, like opening a door I’d kept carefully locked.
“Why didn’t you?”
I took a breath, steadying myself. “Because I didn’t want to know … if you were married. It sounds stupid, but it would’ve crushed me. It was easier to just leave my memories of our short time together alone.”
His expression shifted to surprise, maybe, or recognition. “I understand.”
The moment stretched between us, electric and fragile.
“Tell me how you met your wife,” I said, needing to ground us back in reality.
“She came to work for me as an admin when I first started the company. She was a single mother of two. Five years older than me.” He traced the rim of his glass with one finger. “But we just clicked. By the time I met her, I felt ready to take on the responsibilities of a family.”
I wanted to ask a hundred questions. Did he love her the way he’d loved me? When did he stop thinking about that summer in New York? But I kept my voice neutral. “Was their father in the picture at all?”
Alex shook his head. “He bailed before Bella was even born. Mattie was raising them alone when she came to work for me. Peter was six and Bella was four.”
“I don’t know how anyone could leave their child.”
“Me either. But for their sake and mine, I’m glad he did.”
We chatted more about our lives—daily habits, interests, friendships, parenting teenagers. The conversation flowed easily, punctuated by moments when our eyes would meet and hold just a beat too long, when laughter would fade into something more charged. At some point his knee brushed mine under the table, and neither of us moved away.
