“As my friend, you should be happy that I have someone I can call when I’m lonely,” David said.
“As yourfriend, that isn’t a reason to sleep with someone random.”
“Maria and I have been close for years,” he argued. “She’s far from random.”
I scowled.
He stopped short on the busy sidewalk, sending pedestrians scattering around us. “What did you expect, Olivia?” he demanded. “You ran away and literally left me empty-handed. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
The world whirred around us, but we stood like statues, facing each other. “I don’t . . . expect anything. Idowant you to be happy, but . . .”
I tried to read his expression. His eyes remained hard until something flashed in them. “Maria, Dani—they don’t mean anything. You have to know that I’d—” he stopped, his face darkening. “But when I think about . . . about you and, andhim—” He shook his head, and his jaw firmed. “I can’t go there.”
I grasped his forearm and dipped my head toward him, alarmed by the look on his face. “Me and Bill?”
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be,” he said with conviction.
I’d forgotten that Bill and I weren’t the only casualties in this unfolding mess. But maybe David was hurting more than I’d realized. Something sinister showed in his face—a tempest brewing inside him. I wanted to reassure him that I was also scared, that I had a dark place, and I went there sometimes, too.
As I looked at him, everything around us fell away. I had a powerful need to comfort him, to care for him as if he was mine to make happy. Ineededto tell him what I’d felt in the house—that my feelings for him might be morphing into something else, something deeper.
“The house,” I started.
He glanced up and fastened anxious eyes on mine.
“The house—” I stopped, swallowing dryly.
I saw you there. I sawusthere.
David’s entire presence narrowed in on me, intensifying the expression on his face as he waited for me to speak.
But voicing my fantasies would only give David false hope and hurt him deeper. I didn’t want that.
“We didn’t get it,” I said finally.
He blinked his gaze up over my shoulder. His face closed again, and after a moment, he pivoted slightly to resume walking.
“Maybe I was being unrealistic,” I said, shuffling to catch up with him. “I mean, who has time for a project like that?”
His expression had gone tight when he looked down at me. “Yeah. That place would have been a lot of work,” he said with a hint of irritation.
“I know, but there was just something about—”
“I really don’t want to hear about the house,” he said, his tone verging on snapping.
“Oh. All right.” I cleared some of my hair from my shoulder and made a point to look forward or at other people for the next few blocks.
It was dark by the time we approached Michigan Avenue Bridge. I pulled my jacket closer against the wind as we crossed the Chicago River. He asked if I was cold, and I said no, because what good would it do to admit that I was? He couldn’t hold me or give me his blazer. It was all just too intimate knowing the things we’d done together.
He stopped in the center of the bridge and motioned back toward the Loop. “Can you imagine running from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871? Flames at your heels, driving you across the river?”
“I don’t want to,” I said.
“Your only objective is to get to the other side—but so is everyone else’s. All those people trying to cross at the same time. Panic is a phenomenal thing. You know that it burned for two days?”
“All because a stupid cow knocked over a lantern,” I said, or so it’d been alleged.
He smiled down at me. “Yes, that stupid cow.”
