“You’re not coming in?” she asked when they got to their building. She sounded surprised. Maybe even disappointed.
“I’m having dinner with Charles.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “I have plans anyway.”
He was not going to ask if she was meeting Sam. The bastard.
“I have to turn in something to my writing group,” she said.
His jaw relaxed. “Good luck with that.”
“Thanks. Text me when you get in?” she asked, a hint of mischief in her voice. “So I know you’re home safely.”
He heard the echo of his own words and something in hischest expanded, his lungs or his heart. “Are you offering me a pity shag?”
She lifted her chin at an angle, not giving ground. He liked that so much. “I could be.”
“No dessert with Charles, then.” A smile, wide and unfamiliar, stretched his face. “I’ll save it for you.”
Twenty-nine
I knew Sam was smart. But reading his application was a glimpse into the workings of his brain, its contents as sharp and shiny as the inside of Em’s pin box. His writing was pointed and graceful, bitterly cynical and yet deeply feeling. Like Sam himself.
I looked up from the laptop screen. He was watching me, his leg jiggling under the table, the only sign of tension in his lean, relaxed body.
“It’s brilliant,” I said.
“But it could be better.”
“I don’t see how. I’m intimidated, honestly.”
“I told him it was good,” Janette said from behind the counter. “Not that he listens to me.”
I had stopped in Clery’s before I did my hours at the library. Janette was working the register. Fiadh was training the new hire, an intense young woman with braids and eyeliner, on the espresso machine.
Sam winked at his mother. “Because you don’t read anything but true crime.”
“So she can help me dispose of your body,” Fiadh said.
“Ha bloody ha.”
“Have you heard from your sister lately?” Janette asked me.
“Not so much since her move.” I mustered a smile. Toni had stayed with Em for barely a week, long enough to do her laundry and buy a one-way ticket to New York. “According to her Instagram feed, she’s Queen of Crown Heights.”
“She has a lot going on. Plus, it’s not easy keeping in touch,” Fiadh said. “With the time change and all.”
“I’m sure she misses you,” I said.
“I miss her, too.” Fiadh grinned. “Like having a puppy that follows you around and chews on your shoes.”
I laughed. “It was good for her, working here with you.”
“While it lasted. She sounds happy, living with your mother’s friend.”
“Yeah. I’ve been replaced.”
“Don’t you believe it. Your children always need you.” Janette came from around the counter and ruffled Sam’s hair. “But sometimes what they need most is a good push out of the nest.”
