Page 225 of The Liar's Reckoning

Ollie rubs his neck, his pale cheeks glowing pink. “I just got back from Milan yesterday,” he says. “Drew couldn’t be there because he had to work.”

“Got it.”

“So when are you planning to leave?” Drew asks.

When I widen my eyes, he winks and says, “For Florida, I mean.”

“As soon as I get a start date for the new job.”

“You’re really moving into a place sight unseen?”

“I sent my aunt over to scout it out before I paid the deposit. She said it’s right next to a Whole Foods. It’ll be like I never left here.”

“Better than a pawn shop right?”

I laugh. “Yeah. That’s what I was afraid of. It’s gonna be weird, though, living in a normal place with parking lots and shit.”

“You’re right. There’s no parking lots here,” Drew says like it just now occurred to him. “Wild.”

Drew is from New Hampshire, but he’s been in New York over a decade now. “So what prompted all this?” he asks.

“I want to be closer to my aunt, and I’m not making as much money as I used to. Figured it was time for a fresh start.”

“So…you didn’t meet someone who happens to be from there?” Drew asks.

“No. I didn’t meet anyone.” I don’t let myself say I have someone, though, because it’s more like Graham’s got me.

“But you need a fresh start?”

“He just explained it,” Ollie says, gesturing at me.

Drew puts his hand on the back of his husband’s neck and keeps his eyes on me. “I worry about you, you know?”

I shrug.

“Just that you tend to go quiet for very long periods of time. Ihope I never did anything that made it seem like you couldn’t come to me.”

Is he kidding? Or is his memory just that short? “Water under the bridge,” I say.

“You’re not still hung up on that senator, are you?”

Olivier backhands Drew’s abs.

“Sorry,” Drew says like the slap forced it out of him. “You’re not, though, are you?”

“See?” Ollie says, turning toward him. “What if he is? What if that’s why he’s leaving the town he’s lived in his entire life. Now how does that question sound?”

“It’s sounds shitty, I guess, but I feel like it’s not about that.”

“Then why bring it up?”

“Because I haven’t seen him in a year,” Drew says, gesturing at me.

“I am—still hung up on the senator,” I say. “But that’s not why I’m moving. If that helps clear anything up.”

They turn back to me.

“I’m sorry,” Drew says again, on his own this time.

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