“You’re fine,” he insisted, tearing off a piece of bread and dipping it in his little dish of olive oil. “You were much more reasonable than I was last night.”

He caught her eye from the corner of his, and she blushed.

“You did famously fight an Italian man.” Paul laughed, indicating with a flick of his wrist that they were ready for their first course.

“Okay, but in my defense,” Danial said in a faux-serious tone, “I was really drunk.”

“No kidding.” Alex snorted into her glass, shaking her head slightly.

“I’m sorry,” he turned to face her head-on, smiling, “Is this Elastigirl, shaming me for being too inebriated?”

She whistled, turning toward Paul and pretending not to hear him. In truth, she’d nearly forgotten about Elastigirl. When Paul’s friends had discovered that she was a gymnast in her day—too tall to make a career of it, but quite good nonetheless—they quickly took to demanding party tricks from her. And in her need to impress and please them, she always acquiesced. Usually, she would remove her shoes to perform an illusion, a simple move that rotated her right leg in a circular motion above her head, turning her around in the process. It had the best ROI in terms of being easy for her and impressive for the others, and required almost no space to move around in.

“It’s weird that you guys know Elastigirl,” she mused, more to herself than anything. She winced as her mind turned to the other, even less flattering versions of herself that they also knew.

“Why?” Paul asked, a crewmember setting a plate of fresh tomatoes and burrata in front of him. “You contain multitudes, babe.”

“And none of those multitudes is doing standing backtucks at house parties.” She picked up her fork and knife, pausing briefly as she considered her words. “Even if I sometimes miss her.”

“You miss gymnastics?” Danial asked, looking across at her.

“God, no.” She laughed. “If I wanted to stick with gymnastics, I wouldn’t have gone to Columbia. I mean… you know. I kind of miss that version of myself. It’s been so long since I just let loose like that.”

“You don’t feel like you let loose?” His eyes were still trained on hers, genuinely interested in a way she hadn’t expected.

“I mean, sure, I have fun. I just have a really stressful job, and we’re always talking about basically the worst things happening in the country at any given time, and my dad’s back has been acting up again—it’s just a lot.” She intentionally omitted the budgeting app she had stopped looking at days ago, as lunch on a yacht didn’t seem like the right setting to discuss her financial anxiety.

He swallowed hard, before taking a sip of his sparkling water. “I know how you feel.”