Chapter Nineteen

Slowly, Lexie managed to stem the sobs. And when she did, she became distinctly aware of the fact that she was curled up against Theo, his arm still around her, his T-shirt wet from her tears. She pulled away, and he dropped his arm. She slipped off her sunglasses and brushed away the remaining tears. She didn't want to look right at him, embarrassment at her outburst now curdling in her stomach, along with an awareness of how blotchy and tearstained she must look.

He leaned back onto his palms. "So, one of your wishes was to go to Madrid, huh?"

Lexie laughed, though the sound was a little watery. But it was, in that moment, the best thing he could have done. "Yes," she said. She took a deep breath. Later. She'd figure out her feelings about her dad later. "It was the wish I made the Christmas after he'd taken Rachel here. I think I was more wishing that he hadn't left," she admitted. "Or that he hadn't chosen to take them and not me, or that I wasn't so easy to leave behind." And they, too, were feelings she was still trying to face up to.

"I'm so sorry you had to feel that way," Theo said quietly. "I should have realized there are always two sides to it. I knew your dad felt guilty, but because of what he'd done for me, I just assumed that the guilt was misplaced—or that he was overexaggerating or whatever."

She hugged her knees to her chest. "What did he do for you?"

"Well, he gave me a job, for starters."

She knew that couldn't be the whole story. And actually, she wanted to hear the whole story. Not just because she wanted to know Theo better—which she did, she realized—but also because she wanted to know what her dad had been like for them. What he'd done to inspire such loyalty in people like Ange and Theo.

Theo didn't elaborate though. "Can I hear another one of your wishes?" he asked instead.

Lexie tapped her fingers against her knees. "How about we trade again? For every wish I tell you, you answer a question."

"A wish for a truth?" Theo seemed to consider for a moment, then nodded. "OK, that seems fair."

"When I was five, I wished for a hamster. We went to pick him up after Christmas—I called him Fred, and he lived a grand total of two years. But I was heartbroken when he died."

Theo shook his head. "Poor hamsters—they have a bit of a bad lot, don't they?" He looked up at her, waiting for her question.

She thought about it. Decided to start easy. "What's your favorite color?"

He laughed. "Really? You could ask anything and that's what you lead with?"

"You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite color."

"Can you, now?"

"I don't know." She wrinkled her nose. "Probably."

He went quiet, looking out at the park for a moment. "I think it's probably green."

"Green," she mused, like she was reading into it. He laughed again. She liked the sound of his laugh, she realized. This laugh, the one that seemed open and genuine.

"I grew up in Ireland—"

"Hence the Irish accent."

He made a face. "Right. Thought I'd mostly got rid of that."

"Not quite."

"Well. Anyway. I left when I was twenty-two, because I couldn't wait to get away, but living in a city, I still sometimes miss all the green from where I grew up." It was more than she'd expected him to reveal, and she found herself storing the little nugget away. He helped himself to one of the remaining rosquillas and gave her an expectant look.

"When I was fifteen, I wished that this boy, Mike Freeman, would decide he fancied me. I was totally in love with him." She took a sip of her limonada, and though it had warmed a little in the sun it was still delicious.

"Did it work?"

"Well, he asked me out. But only after he'd been out with and dumped three other girls that year."

"Ah. So not a catch?"

"No. Although he is now happily married with three kids, or so I hear—so maybe his player days are behind him." She put down her limonada . "How did you get that scar?" She reached out, nearly brushed her fingertips over it, then thought better of it and pulled her hand away.

He grinned. It wasn't the cocky grin she'd seen on him before, but one that seemed more fun . "People always have theories about the scar. Bar fight. Attack in the street. I once told a girl I got it in a snowboarding accident at the Snowboard World Cup."

"Did she fall for it?"

His grin turned sly in a way that said it all, and she laughed.

"So? If you didn't get it from snowboarding or fighting?"

"It's actually totally ridiculous."

"Now I really want to know."

"I was about eleven, I think. Mum was trying to teach me how to cook—she was very insistent that I had a rounded education, and even then she wasn't super-impressed with my grades, so she was on a bit of a mission to help me find my calling, so to speak. Anyway, she left me alone chopping onions for a bit, and they started to sting my eyes and I, like, reached up to rub them or something and sort of…forgot I was holding a really fucking sharp knife."

"Oh my god, Theo! You could have taken your eye out."

"So I've been told, many times."

"Your mum must have been so scared."

There was the tiniest beat of hesitation before he said, "Yeah. She was. Your turn."

"When I was six, I wished for a new bike. That one did come true, but only because I not-so-subtly told my parents what the wish was."

"Is that why you do it? Because you want to believe the wishes will come true?"

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe when I was like five." She didn't want to go into how much she'd believed in the magic of it once—they might have been opening up a little, but that was a step too far. "I know you think I'm stupid, but there are limits."

"I never said you were stupid. And I definitely don't think that. I guess I'm just trying to work it out—the whole wish jar thing. You seem so…" He gestured around into the park.

"Green?"

"Green?"

"You're gesturing at the grass. Though if green is your favorite color, maybe I should take that as a compliment?"

"Right. Well, I'm not, I was gesturing into space, for emphasis."

"I seem so…spacey?"

He made a sound that was a cross between a choke and a laugh. "So…I don't know. Real."

"Yes, I've often been complimented on my realness. Those poor imaginary people out there, never having any validation."

"What I mean is, you don't, like, often reference star charts or horoscopes or anything. I had a girlfriend once who was obsessed with horoscopes—to the extent that she broke up with me because her horoscope told her that she was about to meet the man of her dreams, and she took that to mean she had to get rid of me first so she was ready for him."

Lexie laughed, feeling lighter, then pressed her lips together. "Sorry. That's not funny."

"It's a bit funny now. Felt a bit harsh at the time. But wishes—don't they fit into that category? Sort of, you know, wishing something would come true instead of…"

"Working for it?"

"Something like that. Not that you… I just mean, that's the thing. You seem to go after stuff. You're always off—"

"Waiting on posh people in the Alps and having a frivolous time skiing?"

A wince. "Another thing I shouldn't have said. I don't always think things through before I speak."

And for now, she decided to let him off the hook. "So what you're saying is…You're not the wishing type?"

"My mum was big into wishes. Like wishing I would do better in school, wishing I would get a different job, wishing I would propose to my ‘aspirational' girlfriend." He sighed. "Just generally wishing I was different. I guess you could say it put me off a bit."

So maybe that partly explained why he always came back from Ireland in a bad mood, then. She couldn't think of what to say in reply—but she knew what it was like, to think you weren't enough. So she kept it light and said the thing she'd want to hear. "I think you turned out OK. When you're not being all argumentative and annoying."

He laughed, which was what she'd been aiming for. And she realized she liked that she was able to make him laugh.

"I mean, you stuck with the company, didn't you? So maybe you were just waiting for the right thing to come along. Not everyone has to immediately find their feet and get all grown up and sorted."

"Yeah. I guess. Though I only really stuck with the company because Richard made me." He pushed up off the grass, took his sunglasses off as he looked at her, and asked her a question before she could push him on that. "What would you wish for now?"

"Honestly?" A beat. "I don't know. I didn't make one this past Christmas. After he died…" She took a sharp breath. "I thought of a few wishes, when I found out what he'd left me."

"I'll bet."

"But I couldn't think of the right one. And even though I don't put them in there because I believe they'll come true…" She hesitated. "It's sort of like I'm setting them free. Like, by putting a wish in the jar, I won't wish for it anymore. And I didn't know what I wanted that thing to be."

He looked at her for a long moment before saying, "You get one more question. For the last non-wish."

There were lots of questions that were probably way more interesting, important ones. But she couldn't help saying, "You said you had a girlfriend who was into horoscopes." He raised his eyebrows and she was surprised he couldn't see where this was going. "Do you…I mean, are you with anyone now?"

The eyebrows shot up farther, but he simply said, "No." He stood up. "Come on, we'd better go."

He held out a hand, pulled her to her feet. But he didn't let go once she was standing and every part of her hummed at the point of contact.

"Lex?" His thumb brushed, ever so gently, over hers. "Just so you know, if I was with anyone, I wouldn't have kissed you in February." It was the first time either of them had explicitly mentioned the kiss, and it made the back of her neck grow hot at the same time as something pulled, low in her stomach.

"OK." Somehow now all she could focus on was the curve of his mouth, but she managed to get out, "Noted."

He gave her a wry smile, acknowledging she was repeating his own word back to him. And as they turned together to walk out of the park, instead of dropping her hand, he kept hold of it, lacing his fingers with hers.