Page 89 of Impulse Control
“…I don’t know.”
Not a joke. Not a deflection. Just the answer.
Alix’s expression didn’t change, but something in it gentled, like she’d expected that and decided not to make it into a problem.
“You know I love soup night,” she said. “I love the guys. I love the chaos. But I also love this.” She gestured vaguely at the bar, the quiet, the two of us. “Just us. Two girls. Sitting still.”
I glanced around — at the low lights, the slow conversations, the way no one was trying to impress anyone.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I forgot how nice it is to not be needed for anything.”
She raised her glass. “To not being useful.”
I clinked mine against hers.
“To being aggressively unnecessary,” I added.
She laughed. “Exactly.”
We sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping slowly. Letting the noise of the day drain off instead of piling on. My shoulders dropped a fraction. My jaw unclenched. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding myself together until I stopped.
“Dominic’s staying with you, right?” she asked eventually.
I blinked. “How did you?—”
She smiled. “You said he was coming for a visit a couple of weeks ago so we wouldn’t worry about a strange man suddenly heading up to your apartment.”
That memory floated vaguely to the top of my brain, like a sticky note I’d meant to deal with and never did.
“Quan said he would be surprised by anyone heading up to your apartment,” she added dryly.
I winced. “That feels uncalled for.”
She took another sip of wine and waited.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “His train comes over in the morning.”
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Not teasing. Not nosy. Just… curious.
“Ready?” The word stalled somewhere behind my ribs. I was excited. I was. I wanted him here. I wanted to show him Paris. My work. My life.
I just wasn’t sure I’d built a version of my life that could hold another person without rearranging everything.
Amusement flickered through the concern in her eyes.
“Have you cleaned your apartment?”
I snorted. “Define clean.”
She gave me a look. “Rachel.”
It was so kind in its scolding I had to blink hard. For a split second, I could hear Frankie saying my name in exactly the same tone — the one she used when I was about to lie to myself.
“I’ll do it tonight,” I said.
She smiled like she didn’t believe me.
