Page 80 of Angels Are Falling

Unable to help myself, I texted him when Kai wasn’t looking. He had a fast-paced itinerary, and the last time I heard from him, he was in Dubai.

Amelie: Hi. Where are you now?

Stefan: Istanbul. Just landed. Incredible city.

Istanbul. He was only four hours away. I would ask him to join us in Beirut, but I didn’t want to offend Kai. Perhaps I could fly to Istanbul and visit Stefan once we were done in Beirut. I didn’t know the etiquette for visiting your first husband after a vacation with your second. I was between a rock and a hard place.

Amelie: How long are you there?

Stefan: Few days. It’s beautiful here. You’d love it.

Amelie: Sounds amazing.

Stefan: It’d be more amazing if you were here. Miss you, baby.

Amelie: Can you call me later?

He gave my text a thumbs-up emoji without responding. I preferred to tell him I was in Beirut over the phone rather than via text. I had to shelve the idea until I was alone, as it might upset Kai if I called Stefan in front of him. Anyone could see how jealously he guarded me and our time together.

Fuck. This was hard.

How did other people practice polygamy? It was one thing to split your time equally, but how did you divide your emotions fairly? Feelings weren’t tangible. I needed to either see a therapist familiar with our unique situation or go on Reddit to ask perfect strangers for advice.

For now, I decided to focus on Beirut. I still couldn’t believe we were actually here.

By the time we fought rush-hour traffic and rolled to a stop in front of our hotel, I was practically bouncing in my seat. Kai suggested a catnap, but I was wired. The seven hours of sleep on the flight were more than enough. I woke up to Kai handing me an almond chai latte during the plane’s final descent. The cup was the right temperature, and I knew he’d special-ordered the chai latte and almond syrup, since it wasn’t a drink commonly carried on flights. I didn’t comment on it, too enthralled by our destination.

Kai left the chauffeur to check into the hotel and take in our luggage while we went on a stroll. We walked the streets of Mar Mikhael, checking out street art. I pointed things out without planning to. The shortcut that had been walled off. A cafe that was identical to one I remembered from my childhood, except the sign above the door was new. A street bakery that made the best manakish. Kai listened with interest, which was its own kind of attentiveness. I caught myself noticing the line of his jaw when he tilted his head toward something I’d pointed out, the unhurried quality of it.

Throughout the day, my mind still drifted to Stefan whenever something reminded me of him. Like a particular street I wanted to show him. Or a dish I insisted he try only in Beirut. The mental blueprint of visiting this city with Stefan had been so deeply etched into my mind that I was genuinely struggling to overwrite it with the experience of seeing it with someone else. What I’d pictured had become the default, and the imagined expectation felt more real than reality itself.

But the reality was that Kai was the one physically here while Stefan was off on his own adventures.

Kai didn’t object as I dragged him through different streets and neighborhoods. Beirut gave you the sensation of moving through several decades simultaneously. Old stone pressing up against new glass. Bougainvillea reclaiming bullet holes in a wall. The sound of a radio through an open shutter.

After visiting the iconic Gemmayzeh stairs, the stepped streets, and colorful murals, we rested our tired feet at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The food was so light and airy that I couldn’t bring myself to care about my carb intake for the day.

I watched Kai, relaxed, a man entirely comfortable and in his element. It was difficult to look away from him. I hadn’t let myself think it plainly before, but in the low light of a restaurant in my favorite city, it was harder to argue with. I wondered how many other women had sat across from him exactly like this. After all, he was older than me, and women threw themselves at him. He was much more experienced, whereas I’d only ever been with one man before.

“Have you traveled internationally with a woman before? Romantically,” I asked over a glass of Lebanese wine I had made him try.

“What do you think?” he replied dryly.

The answer was no. I knew instinctively.

Between bites of kafta and mezze, I interrogated him on a plethora of other personal questions. He rarely opened up, and seeing that he was in a generous mood, I decided to pry.

I asked about his close friendships.

He gave me three names like items off a short list. A board member. Someone else who ran one of his companies. A man he called an old friend, though the two of them hadn’t spoken outside a boardroom in over a year.

“Those are business relationships,” I pointed out. “Not friendships.”

“Everything’s a business relationship if you dissect it enough.” A pause. “Some of them I simply enjoy more.”

“What about friends from school?”

He considered the question before admitting, “I suppose Caden Maxwell.”