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“The grouper sandwich, also with fries and a soda as well, please. He’ll have the fish sticks with grapes.”

Keegan thanks her, then looks at me with mock seriousness once the waitress is gone. “Sir? Ha.”

“At least she didn’t call you ma’am.”

“So true. But you spoke with your regular accent. I thought you were trying to avoid being recognized as Sir Sexy, Swoony Loomis Powell.”

“Love that you think of me that way. Especially the sexy and swoony part.” I lean over and kiss the corner of her lips. “And for the record, you can call me sir anytime you like. Or you can call me lord and really turn me on.”

“Isn’t screamingOh godenough for you?”

I bark out a loud laugh, and the full and uninhibited sound feels foreign in my throat after this morning. When was the last time I laughed in public without measuring the volume or checking who might be listening? Before Fen, certainly. I didn’t care back then who saw me or what I was doing when I was seen. Everything is different now.

Including the woman beside me.

Fen whines from his highchair, and Keegan immediately turns to him. “Is someone feeling left out of the conversation?” She wipes her hands and lifts him out of his highchair, making sure her braced right hand doesn’t hold his weight beforesettling him on her lap with practiced ease. “There we go. Much better view from here, isn’t it? But when your food comes, you’re going back in.”

My son looks ridiculously happy tucked against her chest. Who could blame him? His blond hair, the exact shade of mine, sticks up in an unintentional mohawk, and his eyes, wide and excited, track a fucking rooster moseying down the street. They really are everywhere, but they better not find us tonight because I swear, tomorrow I am sleeping in past sunrise.

“He has your brooding stare,” Keegan notes, following my gaze. “Very handy for future movie posters. And those wankers better not follow us to our hotel.”

I cough a laugh at how she just echoed my thoughts completely. “Americans can’t say wanker. It just doesn’t work. And God, I hope not about his future movie posters,” I argue, more seriously than I intend. “I’d rather he become a doctor like you or a pastry chef. Something sensible and anonymous.”

She tilts her head, studying me. The sunlight catches in her eyes, turning them from green to gold at the edges. “Says the man whose last film grossed what? A trillion dollars?”

I roll my eyes. “Three hundred and twelve million,” I correct automatically, then grimace. “Sorry. Force of habit. My agent measures success in zeroes, and Tinsley tracks that like the queen she is, always about figures.”

“And how do you measure it?” She’s bouncing Fen gently on her knee, giving him a spoon to play with, but her attention is fixed on me, unwavering and somehow tender despite the directness.

I consider lying, saying something charming and deflective as I would in an interview. But this isn’t an interview, and Keegan has a way of looking at me that makes prettied-up falsehoods wither on my tongue. I want to be real with her.

“If a movie doesn’t do well, it eats at me like mad. And I know I’m at the top right now, and that it won’t always stay this way. What goes up must come down, so for now, I’m trying to be happy with anything I get. It’s not always that easy, but I think having Fen put my life and what’s truly important into better perspective.” I nod toward Fen. “I want a good life for him without someone recording it or commenting on it or asking why his mother isn’t in the picture or who she is. I think once this madness settles down, I’ll find my groove once more. I just miss the days where I could go out to eat lunch without having to worry about all the extra rubbish that comes with it.”

“You will,” she assures me, unsurprised and unperturbed by my slightly bitter tone.

A moment later, our drinks are delivered, and all the heavy talk falls away. It’s not what I wanted for today, but I can’t seem to let it go as I’d hoped.

“I know your life is more than a little stressful right now,” she says, taking a sip of her soda through her straw. “You have a million things you’re juggling, but you’re always smiling and in the moment, especially with him.”

“You’re good with him too,” I tell her, not for the first time in these ten days.

She shrugs. “Babies are easy. They let you know exactly what they want. It’s adults who speak in code.” She looks up at me through her lashes. “Present company included.”

“I can’t argue that, though I’m trying to be less coded.”

“Keep working on it.” She winks at me. “But for real, he’s the most content baby I’ve ever met. Then again, most of the time babies are crying at me when I’m around them.”

“I’m positive any baby who meets you falls fast and hard in love with you.”

Like I am, hits my mind like a bullet. It chokes the sip of water I was taking in my throat, and I sputter to expel it and suck in oxygen.

“You okay?” She half-laughs, reaching over with her good hand to exaggeratedly smack my back.

“Great. Grand. Fantastic. Better than ever.”

She gives me a funny look, and who can blame her? I’m falling for Keegan Fritz. Tinsley’s close friend, billionaire heiress, and native Bostonian, and wow, am I fucked. This is why I’ve been so out of sorts today. It’s because Mum’s words hit and stuck like Cupid’s bloody arrow, and now my brain and heart have unfurled themselves and opened up completely to all things Keegan.

Love. I don’t even know what that is.