before she married into the family. She probably assumed you had your own copies.”
I scoffed. “Right.”
“Anyway. You have Justine to thank for saving it all. She’s been paying the storage fee out of her own pocket so it might be nice for you to compensate her for all that. She was the one that asked Alicio to reach out to you.”
Suddenly the entire situation made a lot more sense. The text from Alicio a few weeks back had been unexpected, but Justine—his housekeeper—had always been kind to me. That she was behind the gesture was less surprising.
“Right,” I said again. “I’ll take care of it.”
Gabriel stepped back toward the car. “I guess that’s it then.”
“Thanks, Gabe,” I said. “I appreciate you meeting me.”
He opened the car door, pausing before climbing inside. “They’re going to invite you to the wedding.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“It’ll be in Florida. On Islamorada. Victor’s probably going to call you and tell you not to come. But you should ignore him and come anyway.” He shrugged. “If you want.”
It was a very small olive branch, and only from one member of the family, but even that was more than I’d expected.
“Just think about it,” he said before I could respond. Then he climbed into the car and was gone.
I moved into the restaurant and sat next to Isaac, trying to sort out my thoughts. I would sometimes go months without giving the LeFrancs more than a passing thought. I did not need them in my life; I didn’t really even want them in my life. Yet, Gabriel’s invitation had felt sincere enough to trigger a dormant hope for something I’d never gotten among the LeFrancs. Acceptance.
I didn’t like what that said about me. I wasn’t supposed to still care. I didn’t care.
At least, I thought I didn’t.
I drummed my fingers on the table and glanced at my watch. 7:34. I’d been nervous all afternoon about seeing Dani again, but I suddenly welcomed the distraction she’d be. Four minutes wasn’t really all that late, and yet, I couldn’t keep myself from glancing toward the door every fifteen seconds.
“Alex,” Isaac said, his voice dry. “You’re going to pull a muscle if you don’t relax and sit still.”
I huffed and settled back into my chair. “Shut up.”
“Why are you so stressed out about seeing her? I thought it was all over between you two.”
“It is. It . . . was. You just could have given me some warning. I don’t appreciate seeing her again under these circumstances.”
Isaac gave his head a derisive shake and reached for his phone. “Under what circumstances? Don’t pretend like this is my doing. It’s not like I kept you chained to the radiator in Charleston. You could have come up to see her anytime. Whatever you feel right now is completely on you.”
My jaw tensed with frustration, but Isaac was right. As much as I hated to admit it, I was the only one responsible for the awkwardness between Dani and me. And that was the problem. Shame was a very uncomfortable feeling.
While Isaac was good at spouting off generalities regarding my relationship history with his sister, in truth, he didn’t know much about what had happened between us. Isaac was a friend, but he liked to keep things surface level. I had my own theories about why that was, revolving largely around personal insecurities and fear of rejection—one didn’t spend years (or at least summers) in family therapy without picking up a few scraps of useful information—but I hardly had room to throw mental health diagnoses at Isaac. I was clearly just as much a mess as he was. I was, after all, the one who had walked out on Dani. The one who had walked out on everything.
I took a deep breath and rolled my neck, cracking it on one side, then the other—a vain attempt to clear my head. When I looked up, Dani approached the table.
I stood, my breath lodged in my throat. She looked amazing. Her blonde hair was . . . and her blue eyes . . . and her dress. I’d seen it before. It was the dress she’d had on when we first met.
I’d first spoken to Dani on the balcony of an apartment on the Upper East Side, at a party I’d had no desire to attend. I’d only been there because my stepbrothers had dragged me along, insisting it was part of my responsibility to “represent the brand,” to think of “the family image.” It wasn’t