“Delaney,” he said, working now to pry his foot free. “Please just take the dress.”
She recognized it for what it was. A peace offering, laughable in the face of all that had happened. Something expensive for something unforgivable.
She scrutinized the bag for another several seconds before snatching it through the crack. It came to her in a rustle, as if it were protesting the changing of hands. As if it knew it was being passed on to someone who couldn’t possibly afford it.
“What’s in the box?”
His gaze followed hers to the little blue square in his pocket. The ribbon trailed out in an iridescent coil. “Nothing,” he said, too quickly to be believed. Then, “Nothing important.”
“Okay.”
Silence, again. Neither of them moved from where they stood. She stood shivering in the doorway, peering out at him. He stared back, his pulse hammering in the triangle of his throat. The sun speared through the clouds in pinpricks of new-November white, turning the leaf-cluttered stoop into an oven. Between them, three lopsided jack-o’-lanterns grinned up through gaping, pulpy maws, their eyes squirrel bitten and strange.
“We’ve been researching for days,” he said. “We haven’t found anything useful. It’s time for plan B.”
“Is this dress part of plan B?”
“It is. It’s the start of it, anyway.” He fastened a button on his coat, checking his watch as he did. She’d never seen him so restless. “Will you come by my house tonight? Around seven?”
“What for?”
He proffered his shoulder in a half shrug. “I’ll tell you when you get there.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?” He didn’t sound angry, only curious, and she couldn’t deny him the truth.
“Because,” she said, “every time I get too close to you, everything starts to fall apart.”
His face fell. “Not everything.”
“God, Colton. Look around. Because of you, I’m being threatened with expulsion from Godbole. Because of you, a person is dead. Because of you, there is something living inside of me. You told me once that all you’d do is hurt me. I should have listened.”
“Okay.” He didn’t offer up a clever retort, didn’t push and cajole, didn’t ply her with platitudes. He only looked quietly crestfallen, his throat cording in a sticky swallow. “Okay,” he said again. He backed down the steps, one hand trailing along the railing. Leaving without a fight. “I get it. I’ll leave you alone.”
He was halfway down the walk when she called out to him, her heart in her mouth.
“I said I should have listened,” she said. “I didn’t say I would. I’ll be there at seven. Let’s try for plan B.”
Delaney stood outside Colton Price’s house in a beige chesterfield and black beret, the lapels of her coat clutched tight against the chill. It was just before twilight, and the sky was aflame with a sunset, the Boston skyline lit red by the sun. One by one, the streetlights began to come on, twinkling awake in filaments of branch-strung gold.
She’d been out here for nearly ten minutes.
Already, her feet were losing feeling. Her fingertips were numb. Her dress was cocktail length—perfect for the sort of upscale outing that matched the much-too-expensive dress Colton had gifted her, less so for idling in the path of a sharp November wind. The chill bit through her nylons with interminable force. She didn’t feel like something new. Something remade. She only felt cold.
The door fell open just as she raised her fist to knock. Colton stood on the threshold in a three-piece suit and overcoat, his jaw wired tight, every inch of him immaculately tailored.
“I’ve lost patience,” he said, winding a scarf around his neck. “If you’re not going to get up the courage to knock, we might as well move on with our night.”
“Oh.” She fussed with the shorn ends of her bob, unused to the length. “Sorry.”
“At least you’re chronically early.” He headed down the steps and into the street. “I’ve calculated in plenty of time for you to experience multiple instances of cold feet.”
She fell in line with him, her heels clattering. “I don’t have cold feet.”
“Not yet, maybe.” He flashed her a grim half smile and beckoned her down the backstreet between his house and the next. The street here was thin and tapering, empty save for a row of tired trash barrels and a newly emptied dumpster. “After you.”
She peered down the unlit walk, her heels precariously balanced atop the cobbled stones, the shard of bone biting into her leg where she’d tucked it. “Here?”
