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“Fresh fish and local produce are the backbone of our menu. We’re a little bit of a farm-to-table, coastal fusion concept, leaning into the Florida coastline and the Central Florida farmers that helped to make this part of the state what it is.

You know what…” He grinned. “Let me make you a little bit of everything.”

“What does that look like?”

“Just trust me.” He winked.

Friends wink at each other. Probably.

A little bit of everything, it turned out, looked like four tapas plates that Marcus brought out all at once. Butter lettuce, avocado, and mango salad. Fresh snapper. Braised short ribs. Roasted potatoes.

“And to drink.” He presented a flight of four wines and started to explain which wine paired with what dish.

“What do you call all of this?” I let out a nervous laugh as he put the plates in front of me, intimidated by the bounty.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a new offering. How about the Dear Prudence special?”

I knew the Beatles song, a dreamy melody about Prudence being as beautiful as the sky. And when was she going to come out to play? The song was so full of longing. Was there something else to the joke?

No, Nora. You’re just starved for attention.

I tried to change the subject. “Tell me about the photographer.” I pointed to the art on the walls. “Where’d you find these photos?”

“Those are mine.”

Goddamnit.

“I’m a beach bum at heart,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I never left Winter Park.

It’s hard to walk away from everything that keeps this place close to nature.

The beach is an hour away. We have nearly a thousand acres of lake here.

I’m not sure I could live in a landlocked state and keep my head on straight. ”

Este would be throwing up in her shoe right now. Or maybe she wouldn’t. There was something about Marcus’s love of where he grew up that was hard to mock. It was completely unpretentious. He was kind, and straightforward.

“A beach bum?” I asked, sinking my fork into the most tender short rib I’d ever seen.

“They let just about anyone on the semipro surfing circuit.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“I’ll try out tomorrow then. I could use a hobby. Should I just head straight to the Cocoa Beach Pier?”

“Tell them I sent you.”

“I’ll do that.” I took a bite of the rib and flavor burst on my tongue. “How dare you.”

“It’s good, right?”

“I’m upset. Nothing should taste that good. We’re all doing what it takes to increase our longevity, and you’re just out here slinging delicious heart attacks.”

“That cow was grass-fed. Does that help?”

“Does that help…” I shook my head and went back for another bite. “Absolutely not.”

“You’re good at this,” he said, and his expression was hard to read.

“What am I good at, exactly?”

“I’ve told you everything about me—where I grew up, my restaurant, surfing—and you’ve somehow managed to stay completely silent about yourself.”

“That was really everything about you?” I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That would be a very short biography.”

“See what I mean? You’re like a spy. If the semipro surfing circuit doesn’t take you, try the CIA next.” He laughed, wiping his hands with a bar towel. “Keep deflecting.”

I laughed a little, too, feeling uncomfortable. “I’m not—Am I deflecting?”

Was I?

“I think so.”

I put my fork down as a show of really paying attention even though the last few morsels of food on my plate were beckoning to me. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“What do you get up to all day?”

He was trying to be nice. Make small talk. But it concerned me that I didn’t have a good answer other than…pal around with Este.

Did I really come all this way—land the guy, move into the big house—just to wind up lost again?

Instead of answering, I said, “I’ve been thinking of going back to school.”

“Oh yeah? What do you want to study?”

I turned to look at him, doing my best to mask my surprise. Marcus was the only person who had ever asked me a follow-up question on the subject.

I took a sip of wine. “Art is the only thing that’s ever held my interest for long. But I don’t know if it’s worth going back to school for that. It’s not a real career, you know?”

I expected Marcus to laugh. But instead, he studied me. There was a sense of disappointment in his expression, like he was sorry someone had lied to me. His features softened in that way of his. “Not a real career? Said the artist to the chef.”

I took another bite of rib, feeling vulnerable.

I had never talked about my artistic goals like this before.

Something about saying them aloud to Marcus walloped me with a harsh reality.

I’d been longing to make art for so long that I forgot about actually making it.

When had I given up on the idea of being an artist?

Maybe around the time I realized I’d have to fend for myself, and that most artists don’t earn a living wage.

But now, there was nothing stopping me, and yet I spent my days working out and getting Botox rather than picking up a paintbrush.

“If you want to be an artist, Nora, you should do that.” Marcus fixed his eyes on me, his expression so serious it caused a lump to form in my throat.

He was right, and I knew it. But something told me truly copping to it would turn this conversation into a long, emotional upheaval, and I didn’t want to get into all of that right now.

Marcus must have sensed my hesitation, because he dropped the subject. “You said you’re from all over?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not a place, Nora.”

I laughed. “It’s about five different places if you want to get precise about it.”

He leaned back on the counter behind him, waiting for more.

“My parents lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, when I was born. After my dad split when I was thirteen, we followed my mom’s love interests around like some kind of a fucked-up road show.

There was Jim from Connecticut, Don in Providence.

Right before my junior year of high school, we spent a summer in Camden, Maine, and she married a shipping heir from Boston, but that quickly ended in disaster.

Sometime in my senior year of college, she ditched New England for current husband Paolo in Winter Park. ”

“Paolo?”

“He’s Italian and only sort of nice,” I said, remembering the cigarette smell that followed Paolo through every room. “She has a place near Park Avenue that she treats like a pied-à-terre while she and Paolo hotel-surf their way around Europe.”

Marcus gave me a look that was somewhere between amused and skeptical. “Who pays for all of that?”

“Husband number three financed the pied-à-terre as part of their divorce settlement. But Paolo pays for the travel. He’s like a viscount or something.”

“She really knows how to pick them.”

“Just their bank accounts, I’m afraid. They weren’t all brimming with personality.”

“That’s a lot for a kid.”

I waved a hand to breeze past the more tender wounds. I had gotten an education out of it. I understood early on in life that I was on my own. Lust fades. People change their minds. Relationships fall apart. Even mothers can be flighty. Very flighty.

Marcus didn’t need to hear how hard friends had been to come by, since I changed schools with every one of my mother’s new romances, or how I spent my teenage years hiding in my bedroom, drawing or painting—a master escapist. No matter how good things seemed, there would always come a time when we would have to give back the zip codes and the cars we’d borrowed—the lives we were trying on.

Ramona always left with more than she had started with—alimony or just some kind of cash payment.

But it was chaos. By a certain point—maybe after the third fiancé kicked us out of his palatial estate—I just put my head down, and vowed to keep my needs to myself, never wanting to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in Ramona’s relationships.

Of course, there was always a final straw. Her charm wore thin, or their money ran out. And then it was time to restart our lives elsewhere.

No wonder I took one look at grown-up, stable Will and swooned.

Instead of saying any of this, I shrugged. “White picket fences are overrated.”

“Is that right?” There was humor in his eyes. “You’re just slumming it in the mansions on the Isle of Sicily then?”

He was trying to be funny, but the joke cut too close to the quick.

Had I run to the closest thing resembling a picket fence that I could find? Worse yet, was I destined to live my life in other people’s mansions?

I took a breath and tried to fake a laugh. “Oh, I didn’t realize we were the kind of friends that can make jokes about each other’s life choices. You want to talk about the tattoo on your arm? Is that Sanskrit?”

“All right.” He waved me off with a playful hand. “You win this round.”

“Good, because I want to hear more about this amateur surfing career of yours.”

I took another sip of my Pinot. It was jarring how easily Marcus saw me.

—

We stayed late at the restaurant talking. I hadn’t realized how late it was until a server approached him to hand Marcus the keys for the night.

I looked around the dining room and saw it was empty.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Must be after ten.”

Hours had passed. I looked behind me, to the front door. It was dark outside and the lights from the lampposts that dotted the sidewalks were glowing.

“I should go,” I said, a little dazed. Marcus was just so easy to talk to.

“Want me to walk you to your car?” he offered, and I nodded. The crime rates in Winter Park weren’t exactly threatening statistics, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Give me just a second to let the manager know I’ll be right back.”

Hopping off my barstool, I headed to the entrance.

As I waited for Marcus, his team started to close down the space for the night—turning the lights up and the ambient music off.

Without the crowds and low lighting that made the restaurant feel warm and inviting, there was a quieter energy to the space.

It was a peek behind the curtain that somehow felt intimate in a way the public wasn’t supposed to see.

“Ready?” Marcus met me by the door and we stepped onto the sidewalk.

Even at ten o’clock at night, the Florida heat was lingering in the air, and the temperature change from an air-conditioned restaurant to a humid evening sent goosebumps up my arms.

“I’m over there.” I pointed to my BMW X5 on the other side of the brick-paved avenue.

I’d sold my Honda about a month after Will and I got married.

He joked that parking the beat-up Accord in his driveway was bringing down the value of the real estate in the neighborhood as he handed me the keys to a brand-new car.

I’d loved that Honda. It’d given me my freedom since I was seventeen years old. But Will didn’t know that, and I know he didn’t mean it as an insult.

Marcus looked left and right and then reached his arm wide to gently touch my shoulder to guide me across. He wasn’t putting his arm around me, not really. But the contact still made me jump a little.

We walked to my car with an awkward silence hanging between us. I kept spinning my engagement ring—hooking the large stone with my thumb and turning it around my ring finger.

“Ohmygod.” I hit my hand to my head when we reached the car. “I just realized I didn’t pay for my meal.” I reached for my wallet.

“No,” Marcus said and put up a hand. “The Dear Prudence special is on the house.”

“Then how do you afford the royalties?”

My stomach did a little twist when I looked into his eyes. He casually pushed his hands into his pockets and laughed. Being with Marcus was like being under a spell. It was hard to reason or even describe, but I didn’t want the spell to break.

So, it was under the spell that I took a tentative step toward him, searching his eyes.

Can’t we just stay here? Can’t we pretend nothing—not the trouble back at my house or all the loneliness—nothing else is real?

He put his hands on my arms, rubbing at the goosebumps that wouldn’t fade. But he looked so sad.

“You should go home, Nora,” he said softly.

I knew he felt it, too. The pull between us. The almost-chemistry that almost gave way to a kiss. In another world, it might have been the end of a date or the start of something. And maybe one of us would have leaned in.

But this wasn’t that world.

I climbed into my car and headed home to my husband, leaving Marcus alone in the glow of a lone streetlamp, watching me go.