Page 22 of Half-Hearted
She looked fucking ethereal. Breathtaking and unworldly. But that wasn’t the part that made my gut crumple like I’d just been sucker punched in the soul.
A man trailed in closely behind her, keeping a hand on her lower back as they made their way across the yard to where we stood. He looked to be around my age and was dressed in a tailored dark blue suit with a crisp white shirt underneath.
My heart sank.
“Happy birthday, Marta!” Alexis beamed, wrapping my mother in a long, warm hug.
“Goodness, Alexis, you look lovely!”
Alexis practically preened in response to the compliment before releasing my mother. “This is for you.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. You really shouldn’t have.” She gratefully accepted the elaborately wrapped gift before allowing her wise, curious eyes to land on the suited intruder. “And who’s this?”
“This is Raj,” Alexis introduced, placing a gentle hand on the man’s bicep. Bile gathered in the pit of my throat. “Raj, this is Marta Bennett.”
“Mrs. Bennett,” Raj said in a smooth British lilt that curdled in my ears. “Such a pleasure. Alexis speaks incredibly highly of you.”
“Oh, please, call me Marta,” she insisted with a huffy laugh, evidently charmed. Then he courteously handed her the absurdly extravagant bouquet of lilies he’d walked in with. Her favorite.
She gushed over them as Raj and my dad exchanged polite introductions.
“And this is her son, Joel,” Alexis eventually said with a delicate, almost noncommittal flick of her wrist. Her eyes never left Raj’s face; my eyes never left hers.
“Pleasure.” Raj held out his hand.
Awkward tension prickled the air when it took me two beats too long to finally peel my gaze off his date, unfurl my stiff fingers, and shake the guy’s hand.
“Likewise.” It came out a hell of a lot harder and unconvincing than I’d intended. Or maybe not. I didn’t really give a fuck whether he liked me or not, to be honest.
Dad cleared his throat and shoved his glasses closer to his face. “So, Raj, what is it that you do?”
The air in my lungs staled.Here we go.
Raj was a gynecologist (because of course he fucking was). He’d graduated top of his class from the Yale School of Medicine (because of course he fucking had) and had recently invested in his third property—another waterfront (because of course it fucking was).
I stopped paying attention as he went on to practically recite his entire professional resume out loud (because that’s what they all fucking did), my eyes gravitating back down to Alexis. She was gazing up at him with what I could only interpret as gushing pride and adoration, and it… it really fucking…
“Excuse me.”
I rounded the yard and went inside, my knuckles screaming in protest against the too-tight clench of my fists. It took genuine effort to not bang the door shut.
We needed refreshments. The table was running low.
I yanked a box of beer out of the fridge. Opened a can. Downed it. Opened another. It was good to know she’d been having fun over the last six weeks while I suffocated in my own misery.
I took another large gulp of my beer.
And it was also really good to reaffirm that Alexis had a very specific type when it came to men she dated. And a tradesman who made a modest living working in his dad’s auto shop wasn’t it, and it was never going to be. She might not entirely realize it, but I did.
It made sense, really. I’d grown up with the Milanis. I knew the lifestyle they were… accustomed to. It was beyond anything I could even dream of attaining in one lifetime, regardless of how hard I worked or what—
My spine snapped straight when I heard the door open again but relaxed just as quickly when my father strolled in. I leaned back against the counter.
“There you are. I was wondering where you’d bolted off to,” he said, eyeing the can of beer in my hand and the empty one on the counter. “What are you doing?”
I cleared my throat, trying to dislodge the aching knot blocking it. “Nothing. Sorry. I needed to cool down for a bit. It’s hot out today.”
He nodded. “Mind if I join? Been a while since we had a beer together.”
