“I know.”
But neither of them let go.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, indifferent to what was unraveling beneath them. Through the glass walls, the darkened library stretched out like a held breath, and the exit sign glowed a steady red.
Miller’s thumb traced Astoria’s cheekbone, impossibly tender after the desperation from moments before. “I should go.”
Astoria nodded, but she didn’t release her grip on Miller’s sweater.
“Astoria.” Miller’s voice cracked on her name. “I have to go. If I don’t go now…”
“Yeah.”
Slowly, like it cost her something vital, Miller untangled herself. Her hands slid from Astoria’s hair to her shoulders, then away entirely, and the loss of contact felt like a physical wound. She stepped back, putting inches between their bodies that felt like miles.
Astoria let her go. She made herself let go, finger by finger, until she was standing alone with her arms wrapped around herself.
Miller gathered her things without looking at Astoria. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated, nothing like her usual fluid efficiency. When she finally looked up, her eyes were shimmering with wetness.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Astoria shook her head. “No, don’t apologize for—” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Miller stood at the door, one hand on the handle. She looked back at Astoria with an expression that would live in her memory for a long time, wanting and wrecked and so beautiful it made Astoria’s chest ache.
“Goodnight, Astoria.”
The door closed behind her with a soft click. Her footsteps receded across the darkened library, then the heavier sound of the main door opening and closing.
Then nothing, just silence. Astoria stood alone among the books with the sweet taste of Miller still on her lips.
She didn’t move for a long time.
The research she’d come here to do sat abandoned on her table: the precedents Gerald needed and the case law that would defend her against another of Valerie’s attacks. It seemed impossibly distant now, a concern from another life.
Astoria touched her mouth with trembling fingers and was convinced she could still feel where Miller’s lips had been.
Slowly and mechanically, Astoria went back to her table. She packed her laptop and notes, then replaced the volumes she’d pulled from the shelves, though she couldn’t have said what any of them contained anymore. She slipped her feet back into her black heels and pulled on her blazer.
The walk to her car felt endless, the parking garage dim and echoing around her. She slid into the driver’s seat and sat there in the darkness, hands on the wheel but not turning on the engine.
She had kissed Miller Scott. Or Miller had kissed her. It didn’t actually matter who had moved first. They had both moved, they both wanted it, they both let it happen.
Everything was different now. The line was crossed, and there was no going back.
Astoria started the car and drove home through the empty streets, not knowing what Monday would bring, only knowing that for the first time in longer than she could remember, she didn’t feel cold at all.
13
Chapter 13: Miller
Miller arrived at work twenty minutes early, which was unusual for a Monday. She sat in her car in the parking garage, watching the concrete wall and rehearsing words she'd been composing for three weeks.
I have a conflict of interest on the Shepry case.
It was simple and professional, the kind of statement attorneys made when circumstances required it. Rachel would accept it, file the appropriate paperwork, and life would continue.
Except nothing about this was simple.
