“I’m not.”
He chuckles softly. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that, brother, and you might actually believe it.”
The line goes dead. I stare at the screen for a few seconds longer than I should. Then I slide the phone back into my pocket.
Out of your hair.
The phrase keeps looping in my head like a bad song. When I look up again, Mara’s watching me. There’s something in her face, something small and quiet. Maybe concern…but it feels like a hand pressed against a bruise.
“Everything okay?” she asks, voice softer now.
“Fine,” I lie.
She studies me like she doesn’t believe it. She’s getting too good at that—reading between the cracks.
The music keeps playing, soft and steady, and I realize the room smells like strawberries from her shampoo. Or maybe from the pancakes I made her nights ago.
I hate that I remember. I hate that it’s enough to drag me back to her mouth, to the way she said my name like it was a secret.
“Go to bed, Mara.”
She tilts her head, eyes glinting. “You always tell me that right before you do something stupid.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Not yet,” she murmurs.
And then she walks past me. Her shoulder brushes mine when she passes. It’s a small thing—barely contact—but I feel it long after she’s gone. Her perfume lingers in the air, sharp at the edges, sweet underneath. It sticks in my throat.
I stay there until the last note fades. Then I pour myself a drink. The glass is cold, the vodka colder. It burns on the way down, but not enough. Nothing ever does. I pour another.
The rain’s stopped. The quiet that follows feels wrong, like something missing rather than peace.
As I look at the doorway she disappeared through, my chest feels tight in a way that doesn’t make sense.
Out of your hair.
I say it in my head again, like repetition might make me feel any less. But the image of her swaying barefoot in the dark, hair wild, face soft with laughter…it sticks in my mind.
I tell myself it’s nothing. Just a distraction.
Except it isn’t. It never was.
37
MARA
Idon’t knock. I slip through his door quietly, bare feet on cold marble, the silk hem of my sleep shirt brushing my thighs.
The hallway was dark. His room’s darker. But the balcony doors are open, and the glow from the city throws his silhouette into focus.
He’s out there. Leaning on the railing. Smoking. The stars are out. The wind smells like rain and smoke and something expensive I can’t name.
He doesn’t turn when I step outside. He doesn’t tell me to leave.
I stop next to him. Close, but not touching. For a while, neither of us says anything. The only sound is the soft crackle when he takes another drag.
I reach up and pluck the cigarette from his fingers. He lets me.
