“Camila is a gem,” Lucy comments as she nibbles on a stalk of asparagus. “Every time I’ve eaten here, I feel like I’m at a Michelin star restaurant.”
“I know.” Graham sips from the glass of wine he poured for himself. He’s the only one drinking alcohol—Lucy and I are just having water. “She’s worth her weight in gold. Don’t you think so, Tess?”
Those are the first words he said to me since I sat down. And he’s only including me to be nice. How would I know how good Camila is? I just met her this morning. “Yes…”
“If not for her,” Graham continues, “Tess probably would have set the house on fire by now.”
Lucy laughs, but I don’t appreciate the joke. “No, I wouldn’t,” I protest.
Graham chuckles. “Come on.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I shoot back. “I would be fine by myself here all day. I wouldn’t set fire to anything. I would be fine.”
“Right. Sure. You’d be fine.”
I don’t appreciate the sarcasm in his voice. “What do you think I’m going to do? I might not remember yesterday, but I know how to work a stove. I know how to walk Ziggy around the block. You really think I can’t be by myself?”
“No,” Graham says patiently. “I don’t think that you can’t be by yourself. I know you can’t be by yourself.”
I look over at Lucy for help. She has made herself busy spearing one of the chunks of steak that has been shredded by the butter knife. Presumably, I am not to be trusted around steak knives.
“Lucy,” I say. “You spent the entire afternoon with me. Do you think I would do something dangerous?”
Lucy sighs and puts down her fork. She reaches for my hand across the table. “Tess,” she says. “What’s the difference, really? Camila is amazing. Is it so horrible to have her around?”
I think about the locks on the front and back doors. The ones trapping me inside my own house. Then I think about the ten seconds when I was walking Ziggy, and my brain shut down and went to a completely different place. A “seizure.” My skin starts to crawl and I snatch my hand out from underneath Lucy’s.
“This wine is unbelievable.” Graham swishes the red wine around in his glass, apparently done with this line of conversation. “I got it at Martha’s Vineyard.”
I think of the Cabernet, which was the last wine I remember drinking before this happened to me. It was the most expensive bottle of wine I’d ever had, but I suspect it was far cheaper than whatever Graham is drinking now.
“It has an earthy aroma, almost smoky,” he says. “And it has a soft, smooth mouth feel.”
What the hell is a mouth feel? Doesn’t all wine feel the same in your mouth? I mean, they are liquids.
I wish Harry were here. He would be poking me and whispering jokes about Graham in my ear. And laughing about “mouth feel.”
“It’s delicious,” Graham says.
Lucy reaches over and picks up his glass of wine. She takes a sip. “It is a bit smoky. Not bad.”
They share a look, and my stomach turns cold. That whole exchange was strange. She just picked up his glass of wine and drank from it like nothing. You don’t do that with somebody unless you know them very, very well.
Is it possible something is going on between Lucy and Graham?
No. Not possible. I have no idea what Graham is capable of, but Lucy would never do that to me.
I try to push my suspicions out of my head. I reach for Graham’s wine glass. “Let me try.”
Before I can wrap my fingers around it, he snatches the glass away from me. “Sorry, Tess. No alcohol for you with your brain injury. Could be dangerous.”
“What’s it going to do?” I say. “Wipe out my memory? Oh, wait.”
I look over at Graham, who is raising his eyebrows at me. That’s when I notice that my speech has become slurred. I reach for my water glass and take a gulp of the liquid. My head is starting to feel foggy. Much worse than earlier in the day.
“Tess?” His eyebrows knit together. “You getting tired? Time for bed?”
“I’m fine,” I try to say, but my words are still slurred. Oh God, what is happening to me? “Just… a little… tired.”
Lucy’s chair scrapes back against the floor. “I should get going anyway. It’s getting late.” She reaches for my hand again and gives it a squeeze. “It was so good seeing you today, Tess.”