“You look so pretty, Blackbird,” he says as David enters the room with three covered dishes on the trolley. Blush flames in my cheeks. “Thank you.” “You always look pretty. When you came to the restaurant, I said—” Rowan hiccups twice, then drowns the next one with a gulp of wine—“I said, ‘Sloane is the most beautiful girl in the world.’ And then my brother called me a ‘feckin eejit’ because I could have all the pussy I wanted in Boston but instead I’ve taken a vow of obstinance—” “Abstinence.” “—abstinence over a girl who doesn’t want me.”
