But the universe is silent, so here I remain. The meteor that’s just made impact, hissing in its crater.

· TWO ·

Jamie

Jean-Claude gives me a confused once-over when I reach the bottom of the steps. My wardrobe change took place in a second-floor restroom—well, one of them. This house reminds me of my parents’, in size, at least. That’s where its similarities end. This house feels like a home.

“What happened?” he asks.

I adjust my cuffs until the buttons are halfway across my wrists. “Beatrice. Thankfully I packed a backup shirt.”

He pats my back and sighs. “You would be that neurotically overprepared.”

“I always have a change of clothes. I’m a pediatrician, Jean-Claude. Do you have any idea how many times per week a baby vomits on me?”

“Fair enough.” He sips his drink and gestures toward the large living room where the cocktail explosion took place. “I hope you won’t write her off,” he says quietly.

“Who?”

He glances around, then switches to French. We’re both fluent, thanks to our French expatriate mothers, but he only uses it when he wants to gossip around others. “I’m talking about Bea. I know she’s rather . . . odd, but she’s sweet once you know her. In her way.”

“I’m not writing anyone off. There’s no need to, when she and I won’t be crossing paths again.” I was at my socially anxious worst, which I know isn’t when my most endearing qualities come out. Beatrice made sure I knew it, too. After that disaster, why would we ever seek out each other’s company?

“Perhaps not tonight,” Jean-Claude concedes as we stroll toward the foyer. “But you’ll be seeing plenty of her in the future.”

I stop abruptly. “What?”

He flashes a wolfish grin and pats his pocket. “I’m going to propose to Juliet.”

“Propose? It’s been three months.”

Jean-Claude looks perturbed. “Long enough to know that I want her to be mine forever. Not everyone moves at your glacial pace, West.”

That stings, but I let it roll off my back, like I always do with him. “Right. I meant no offense. I was just surprised.”

His gaze settles on Juliet mingling among the guests, not even an exotic swan’s-feather mask obscuring her wide smile. “West,” he says, eyes still on her. “You’ve been alone for too long, indulging in this bachelor nonsense. You’re lonely and miserable. Why not let that change tonight, eh?”

“I’m not lonely or miserable,” I tell him, reverting to English, a signal that this little private chat is over. “I’m busy.”

No time to miss a relationship when you’re drowning in work. And yes, perhaps I’m working so much to avoid meeting someone or dating at all costs, but if your last relationship ended the way mine did, you’d be single by choice, too.