Page 87 of Weather Girl

“Sorry to surprise—” His dark eyes widen, and he gestures to his own cheek. “Are you okay?”

I clap a hand over my face. I scrubbed at it as well as I could at Alex’s, but some of the blue lingered, giving my face a sickly hue. “My niece and nephew had some fun with paint earlier.”

“Ah.” A glance between me and the apartment building. “Do you think we could talk for a moment?”

My stomach prepares to reject the pastelitos. “Did you and Torrance—? Is everything—?”

“We’re fine,” he says quickly. “We’re great, actually. I just came here to talk to you because, well... I realized we’ve never talked that much.”

Despite how surreal it is to see Seth Hasegawa Hale in my garage, I invite him upstairs, where I become intensely aware of the messes I haven’t cleaned up: plates in the sink, blanket spilling onto the living room floor, snack wrappers poking out between the couch cushions.

“I’ll just, uh, tidy this up a bit,” I say, rushing around and grabbing as much junk as I can. “Do you want something to drink, or eat, or...?” I’m relieved when he says no. “Sorry. I eat all my meals on the couch, pretty much.” I slam the dishwasher shut, praying Seth doesn’t report back to Torrance that I have the eating habits of a twenty-year-old stoner.

“Patrick does, too. Dining tables aren’t really a thing for your generation, huh?”

“Guilty. What will millennials kill next?” It’s a cheap joke, but it gets me the pity laugh I was hoping for.

I motion toward the couch, and the two of us sit down.

“So...” he says, drumming his fingers on one of my pillows, the drawn-out syllable underscoring the fact that we have never had a solo conversation. Even when we were at that hockey game, which now feels like it happened years ago, we were buffered by Russell and Walt. Plus, there was very clearly something going on around us, and here there isn’t, unless you count the empty bag of chips I attempt to casually kick under the couch.

He closes his mouth, and for a moment, I think he might get up and leave. Forget what he came here to say because it’s just too awkward.

“I wanted to check on you,” he says finally. “How... are you doing?”

“Oh. I’m okay?” Despite telling my brother I didn’t want to talk about it, the question doesn’t feel nearly as panic-inducing, coming from Seth.

“I know you and Tor have become close, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you and Russell helped us like that.” He’s been staring at his shoes, sleek suede slip-ons, but now he turns his attention to me. “Perhaps it wasn’t the most professional thing to do for your bosses, but as you know, I’d never gotten over her. Maybe we’d have found our way back to each other on our own, but maybe not. I think we really needed this boost.”

“It wasn’t as noble a mission at the beginning as you’re making it out to be.” I feel compelled to remind him of this.

“However it happened,” he says, more confidence in his voice now, and maybe I see a glimmer of the man who used to want to be on camera, too, “I’m glad it did. And I wanted to thank you.”

“You’re doing well, then?” I ask.

When he grins, his whole face lights up. “We’re better than we’ve ever been,” he says, smoothing out some stray threads on my pillow. “We’ve even talked about going on vacation together this summer. And you and Russell...?”

There’s something familiar in the way he says it. A feigned nonchalance I recognize all too well. After what happened in Torrance’s office, I know that Seth is a terrible, terrible actor.

That’s why he’s here. To help Russell and me.

“We’re... not together anymore,” I say. “It’s for the best. Really.”

“I don’t know about that.” Seth places the pillow behind his back, and I want to tell him there’s unfortunately no comfortable position on this couch. I’ve tried them all. “He’s been different at work. Still professional, of course, because that’s Russ, but there’s something off about him. A spark that’s missing.”

“I doubt it’s because of me.”

Seth just raises his eyebrows, like we both know that’s not true. “A wise person with questionable taste in snack foods once told me that if something’s right, if it’s meant to be, then it’s worth bending a little. I don’t know all the intricacies of your relationship, and I don’t want to overstep—”

“A first for any of us,” I put in, but he doesn’t laugh.

“For five years—longer, really, since we weren’t happy for a while before the divorce—I was too proud,” he continues. “Too stuck in my ways. If I’d realized that earlier, maybe we would have gotten back together sooner.”

“Or maybe you’d never have split up.”

He considers that for a moment. “Maybe we needed to,” he says, “to learn that it was possible to become whole again.” A pause. “Maybe none of this is relevant. Maybe what you two are dealing with is quite different. But in case any of it means something to you, I wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you. I—I appreciate that,” I say, wanting so badly to view this as the glimmer of hope Seth intended it to be.

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