“What feeling?”

She couldn’t name it. “It’s, well, it’s kind of like that feeling when there’s a storm outside and all the lights flicker out. You know?”

He squinted one beautiful eye at her and shrugged. “I mean, yeah, that’s happened to me before.”

“Well,” she soldiered on. “When that happens, everything goes quiet and dark. And you realize just how much noise your life usually makes. Like, with the refrigerator humming and the buzz of an old lamp, that kind of thing. And for a second, you just sit in the dark and the quiet, and listen to the storm outside and think, this is what life is actually like. And the lamp and the refrigerator, all they do is just cover it up.”

The other eye was now squinting at her as well. “That’s how you felt as a foster kid?” he asked slowly.

“I guess I just felt like I realized that the world was a naturally lonely place, only I hadn’t known because I had my parents there to protect me. But when they were gone, I realized the natural state of things.”

Evan’s eyes had stopped squinting but now, much worse, they were wide and filled with what she was certain was pity. “Oh, babe, loneliness isn’t the natural state of things.” He paused and the pity in his eyes intensified. She could practically hear him thinking the words poor little orphan girl. “You just need to make friends at school is all. You’ll feel less lonely then.”

She bristled. And she wasn’t sure if it was because this very affluent man with his entire family intact was telling her a thing or two about the world, or if it was because he was accusing her of not having made friends yet. Either way, she felt hot pokers of irritation rise out of her skin like the spines of a hedgehog.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she insisted bullishly. “I’m not saying I’m lonely.” Or at least she wasn’t admitting it. “I’m just trying to describe this feeling I used to have that I’ve been having again. Like déjà vu. It’s a cold feeling. Drafty—”

She cut off when his warm hands slid across the table and laced fingers with hers. “If you’re cold, V, I’ll warm you up. I promise.”

She looked down at their linked hands. She had to admit that being held by this beautiful man, even just holding hands, did infuse a bit of warmth back into her body.

She looked at the lasagna on his plate and considered all the words she hadn’t been able to say just now. It was ridiculous and unfair to think that Evan would know some magic words that would cure her of this feeling. The warmth between their palms, the bread in the basket, the sunny little salad, a person to share lasagna with, those were all things to be grateful for. Evan certainly didn’t demand for her to be perfect. It would be the height of hypocrisy if she demanded that of him. She took a deep breath and tuned out everything but the feel of their hands pressed together.