He paused, and something about my expression made him frown. “Yes?”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Since when has champagne evernotbeen a good idea?”
“No, us.”
My heart pounded against my chest as though trying to tell me to stop talking. Malone remained frozen. Champagne flowed into the sink before he absently sat the whole bottle in there, wisps of carbonation rising from the top. “Can I ask what brought about this change of heart?”
“No reason,” I whispered, my past and my present colliding in ways I didn’t like.
“Oh, there’s gotta be a reason.”
I forced myself back into the present. “No, my ex and I used to call it ‘No Reason Champagne.’ I do have reasons, very good ones.”
“Please tell me it’s not to get back together with him.”
“No! Why does everyone think I would do that?”
“Because, I don’t know, you were with him for a reason.”
“I don’t remember what it was at this point. No, the moving van. You’re moving.”
“Not today! That’s for Mrs. Q. Her daughter finally talked her into moving into a place where she won’t have to climb the stairs.”
Ah, that.
“No, but someday you will move, Malone. Unless ...”
I gave him space to talk about a branch office, as he’d considered for Selena. Instead, he said, “Unless what?”
“Nothing.”
“Well,” he said, “they do make phones and planes and such. I don’t love the idea of long distance, but—”
“Is that really what you want to do?”
“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Then what are we doing here?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You tell me.”
I needed him to say it first. Why couldn’t he understand that I needed him to say it first? Every time I’d put myself out on that limb in the past, someone had sawed it off and let me fall.
Well, not Havisham or Salcedo.
Have you really known them long enough that you can guarantee they won’t do something similar someday?
Damn, today had done a number on me. I was hungry and dehydrated and confused and disheartened and—
Malone became blurry in front of me, and I felt the first dull stab of a migraine behind my left eye.
Ugh. Of course—I’d spent all that time in the car, then dealt with Ken, then visited the tag office, and then gone to Trista’s house, where she didn’t offer me so much as a glass of water.
“I can’t do this right now,” I said, holding a hand over my left eye. “I gotta go lie down.”
Malone’s expression changed to one of concern. “Are you okay?”
