Page 96 of The Rehoboth Retreat
This was a damn spiritual experience.
I don’t even remember what Miles called that lemony fish thing—it was probably something pretentious in Italian, likeBranzino alla I’m Better Than You—but the second it hit my tongue, I had a full-body reaction. I’m talking eyes-closed, involuntary moan, sudden belief in the healing power of citrus. I might’ve blacked out briefly.
“This… Miles…” I said, mouth half-full, gesturing at the plate like I’d just witnessed the second coming of Julia Child.
He didn’t even glance up from buttering a hunk of rosemary focaccia. “Yes?”
“This tastes like if God had a summer home in Sorrento and got bored enough to cook.”
Cecilia laughed like someone had uncorked her. “Nowthat’sa review.”
“I’m serious,” I said, pointing at my wine like it owed me money. “My chef—hell, all three of them—have never pulled something like this off. They try, but then there’s always some bullshit foam or one sad microgreen. This? This is sorcery. You’re a wizard. Do you have a wand in that knife drawer?”
Miles gave me one of those tight-lipped smiles, like he was simultaneously pleased and annoyed. “It’s just fish, Hudson.”
“It’s an institution.”
He rolled his eyes, but I caught the tiniest smirk tug at the corner of his mouth as he cut into his own fillet. And just like that, the night settled into something soft and golden—one of those perfect dinner party scenes people try to re-create on Pinterest and fail every single time.
Candles flickered. Plates clinked. The ocean hummed nearby like the world’s sexiest white noise machine.
We talked about everything.
Cecilia regaled us with a story about how she once got kicked out of a Napa vineyard for arguing with the sommelier—“He called my palatepedestrian, darling.Pedestrian. I was raised on Château Margaux and Catholic guilt”—and Miles tried desperately to keep her on track, which only made her more unhinged and hilarious.
And then, after a dangerously smooth refill of Barolo—realBarolo, none of that Trader Joe’s imposter nonsense—Cecilia turned her head to me, suddenly very still.
“So, Hudson…” she said, the words slow and silk-wrapped, which I immediately recognized as the beginning of an ambush. “Tell me—what exactly do you think of my son?”
Cecilia was already a few cocktails deep, channeling her inner Moira Rose from Schitt’s Creek on a long weekend. And honestly? Who was I to judge?
Miles choked on a bite of pasta. “Mother!”
“Oh come on, sweetheart. I’m simply making conversation.”
“You’re interrogating,” Miles accused.
“Tomato, tomahto,” she said, waving her hand like a jazz flutist. “Hudson doesn’t mind, do you?”
And honestly? I didn’t.
Miles looked mortified. His cheeks went pink, and he suddenly becameveryinterested in repositioning the tiny ramekin of olives on the center of the table.
But I leaned back in my chair, slung one arm lazily over the side like I was on a therapist’s couch, and grinned.
“Cecilia,” I said. “Your son is a walking Architectural Digest article wrapped in tailored cashmere and existential dread. He’s intense. Polished. Terrifying in the way that only people with monogrammed ice buckets can be.”
Miles attempted to intervene. “Hudson—”
“I’m not finished,” I said, holding up a finger. “But he’s also weirdly kind. Sharp as hell. Endearingly neurotic. Like if Nigella Lawson and a hummingbird had a baby who knew how to make adamngood Negroni.”
Cecilia beamed.
Miles buried his face in his napkin.
“And,” I added, swirling my wine, “I think he might actually like me. Which is petrifying. Because I’m, you know,me.”
“You’re not so bad,” Cecilia said with a wink. “Under all the glitter and scandal.”
