When we pulled back into the circle in front of the house, there was a catering van parked with its doors open wide and people in black chef’s coats moving to-and-from the house.

“What is that old vampire up to?” I asked.

“Rob!” Naomi’s eyes widened.

“I love her,” I said, unfastening my seatbelt. “But I don’t love her hijinks. And there are always hijinks.”

“I’ll put the car in the garage.”

I nodded, just because I needed privacy to talk to my grandmother. There were very strong Delaney rules about airing dirty laundry in front of the help, even though they were, literally, the people who washed our dirty laundry. I might feel differently about Naomi, but I wasn’t about to explain that to my grandmother. Just like I couldn’t begin to explain the complicated, fucked-up dynamics within the Delaney clan to sweet Naomi.

I found my grandmother on the deck, which was set with a long table covered in white linens. I pulled out one of the chairs and sat opposite her. Her pixie cut was ruffled by the breeze. Her red lips were perfectly polished and smug, and she took her oversized sunglasses off to lay them next to her place setting.

"I thought we were ordering lunch in for the two of us," I said evenly. "Not for a guest list."

Through the French doors, I could glimpse the caterers moving around in the kitchen.

She wrinkled her nose. "Honey, where did you go? What's that on your shirt?"

"Cat fur," I said shortly, brushing a tuft of white fur off the front of my polo. The breeze lofted it, and it sailed over our heads towards the house.

"Well, the guests should be here in ten minutes, but you might as well take the time to shower."

"Like I said, I wasn't expecting guests."

"Kate's allergic to cats.” She waved me off. "Go! Shoo! Take a shower!"

"Kate?" I asked. "What's Kate doing coming?"

"Good lord. You went to BU and that's the best sentence you can form?" She smiled slightly.

"You're being awful," I warned her as I stood.

"You can't blame me, sweetheart," she said. "I want grandchildren."

"Awful," I said again, knowing it would make her smile, and headed inside. I looked for Naomi as I crossed the house for the stairs, eager to warn her— somehow the thought of Naomi and Kate coming face-to-face made me uncomfortable— but I couldn't find her.

Twenty minutes later I came back down, clean-shaven and freshly showered, in a crisp blue button-down and dark wash jeans. I’d purposefully grabbed the first few pieces of clothing at the top of my suitcase. I wasn’t going to worry about how I looked to my ex.

Grandmother mingled out on the deck with her guests. One of them stood with her loose brown curls blowing in the breeze, wearing a summer dress and strappy sandals. I glanced away quickly, taking in the rest of the crowd.

I knew Senator Gray and his wife from his childhood, when they had been frequent visitors, and I remembered the slender, magenta-haired professor of poetry as one of Grandmother's best friends when she had lived in Rhode Island. The others I didn't know.

Senator Gray turned when he saw me coming down the stairs, his eyes widening slightly. Then he smiled, extending a tanned hand to me. “Rob Delaney. For a minute, I thought you were your father. Spitting image.”

“Senator Gray,” I said, shaking his hand and pretending the rest of that greeting hadn’t happened. I didn’t care to have anything in common with my father.

“I want you to know, Rob, you’ve made us all proud here in Rhode Island. Not many people with the world at their feet would choose to spend their life in service.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t really want to thank him. Senator Gray had been my father’s mentor when my father was a junior congressman. The two of them had been thick as thieves and twice as dishonest. But when my father wrecked his car and his political career in one drunken afternoon, Senator Gray had suddenly disappeared from our lives.

"Oh, Rob, come greet Kate," Grandma said, waving me over.

Kate turning, smiling brightly. Her face was leaner, faint wrinkle lines around her eyes and the corner of her lips, but she looked very much the same as she had for the eight years we had dated on-and-off. Her cheeks still dimpled the same as they used to.

Grandmother hadn't thrown together this luncheon just that morning. She must have started planning when she heard I was here, maybe before she even bought a plane ticket out from JFK.

"Hi, Kate," I said, hugging her easily. It wasn't her fault that Grandmother was being a nut.

Kate felt very thin, hard-edged, and she smelled like the perfume she'd always worn. Happy. I remembered picking up the bottle in her college dorm room, sniffing it, telling her, "You certainly make me happy."

"Hi, Rob," she said. There was a mischievous bob in the way she launched herself onto her toes to hug me. "It's been a while."

"It's been too long," I admitted, because no matter that we'd broken up, we'd been important to each other for a long time. I should have kept in touch.

Grandmother smiled at us and slipped away to chat with her other guests. Kate raised her eyebrows; she knew my family all too well.

"Sorry," I mouthed at her. I slid my arm around her waist to pull her to the deck railing, where the sound of the surf would give us privacy. "The lobster rolls should be good, anyway. She ordered from McLane's."

"I haven't had a lobster roll in ages," she said. "Your family's always thrown the best parties."

"I thought this was just a quiet lunch," I said, bracing my forearms on the rail to look out at the bright blue ocean. "She surprised me with the guest list."

"I thought maybe she had," Kate said.

I didn't want her to think I was disappointed to see her. "You know she just got in this morning?"

"She’s a character," Kate said, a smile warming her voice. "Everyone in your family is a character."

"Don't remind me."

"Especially you." She bumped me playfully with her hip. It felt comfortable being around her again. That seemed like a miracle, after how things had ended.

"So how's life in the teams?" she asked.

"Hard to sum up pithily. How's life as a high-powered lawyer?"

"Miserable. I can sum that up pithily." She glanced at the delicate rose-gold watch on her right wrist. "I'm taking an unusually long lunch before I blazer up again and get back to work."

"Thanks for coming."

"I thought you might need backup."

“Thanks, Kate.” I smiled at her fondly. We had different life paths, but she’d always been a good friend. It was nice to know we could pick up a platonic friendship again after all this time.

"Your grandmother's going to do this all over again with someone else tomorrow," she said, her voice mischievous.

"Oh, god, she probably won’t stop." I groaned. "She wants grandchildren."

Kate took two glasses of beer from a caterer, passed one to me. “Here. You best start day-drinking.”

* * *

When the guests had gone, I sat opposite my grandmother again as she poked at a slice of cheesecake. "You know I'm not the marrying kind," I said, "Even if you dangle Kate in front of me."

"She is a lovely young lady.”

"Yeah. She is. She deserves better.”

“Better than my clever, cute, and occasionally charming grandson?” She shook her head. “What’s wrong with marrying you?”

“Being married to a SEAL. Being married to a Delaney. Take your pick."

Grandma huffed. "Would you give up this family curse nonsense of yours?"

"I don't believe in a family curse, and you know that. I don't believe in magic at all." It had been Grandmother, after all, that had once threatened me with no more Christmas presents if I let my brothers in on the Santa secret. She knew I'd given up believing in magic before I was even in first grade.

I’d stopped believing in magic when my mother disappeared.

"That we were cursed by a witch? No. That we were cursed by that wreck? You absolutely do believe that, Robert."

"That wreck. Such a way of putting it." I shook my head. "So passive. Like mistakes were made."

“Mistakes certainly were,” she said back to me tartly. “But Rob, you deserve to find love.”

“Then you should leave me to find it. Not club it over the head and drag it into the house.”

She stared back at me, her chin rising slightly. “I just want what’s best for you.”

“I know,” I said.

“You can’t hate me for being meddlesome. It’s only because I love you.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “You know I love you. Don’t use that as a club.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors, darling.” She pushed back her chair. “You have to commit to one or the other.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“It’s too hot for May,” she said. “I’m melting.”

“I though you only melted when there was a little girl with ruby slippers involved.”

She shook her head at me. “I’ll see you tonight, Rob.”

“No more surprise dates?”

She walked inside without answering. I knew damn well what that meant.

I waited until she'd disappeared back inside, the French doors latching behind her, before I called Naomi.

I wandered down the hill towards the water, past the tennis court and the hot tub, as I listened to the phone ring.

"What is it, Rob?" Naomi answered, with a smile in her voice that defused her words. "I knew I shouldn't give you my number."

"Amy gave it to me within fifteen seconds, and you made me work for it. What's up with that?"

"Amy was hoping to be your booty call."

"Right, where did I put her number, anyway?"

"I thought you didn't like blondes."

"It's not that I don't like blondes. I just adore brunettes."

"Really?"

"Especially the stand-offish ones."

"Well, good thing your grandmother is helpfully supplying brunettes for you." There was a light tone in her voice that sounded false.

"She wants me to settle down."

"Oh."

"I told her I'm not the marrying kind."

"I know," she said, and I didn't like the way she said that. "So what is it, Rob? What do you need?"

"Soft serve. At a bare minimum."

She sighed. "You want me to abandon my work to take you for a cone?"

"Not just any cone. A fresh-baked waffle cone."

“You do know the way to my heart. I'll be right there.”

I found myself smiling after our banter, but I sure as hell wished I knew the way to her heart.