He knew there were questions he ought to ask. Polite questions. Meaningless questions—Are you okay? Were you close? Is there anything I can do?
He didn’t ask. He was too selfish. He didn’t want to know. On top of that, there was a wariness in his chest he couldn’t cull—a creeping sense of wrongness that rooted like ragweed. He thought of her weeping by the pool, the turbulent look in her eyes as he’d picked glass out of her wrist. Philip in the driveway:I didn’t reach out to you by accident.
He felt like he was staring at an optical illusion, the truth just a shifting perspective away.
“I should have been here,” he whispered into the top of her head.
She pulled back far enough to meet his eyes. This close, he could smell the flowery notes of her shampoo, just a hint of coconut. Her eyes were molten in the afternoon light, her cheeks wet with tears. He thumbed them away without thinking. Instantly, something hardened in her stare—a decisiveness he’d come to recognize over the past several weeks.
“I already know what you’re going to say,” he assured her. “Your business is none of my business, I can kick rocks, etcetera. I memorized it all the last time, so you can spare me the—”
She surged onto the tips of her toes and swallowed the rest of his sentence in a kiss. It tasted reckless and impulsive and like coconut lip balm. Every last coherent thought inside his head stuttered to a halt. His hands slid into her hair as he bent over her, kissing her back.
It was one kiss, searing and perfect.
One kiss, and then sense swung into him like a sledgehammer.
He eased her off him, setting her gingerly back onto her heels.
“Vivienne—” His voice came out burned. He had no idea what to say. No idea where to even start. He thought of his mother and the growing stack of bills, his sister’s empty college fund. He couldn’t afford to go crawling back home empty-handed.
Amelia had made the stakes perfectly clear the last time they spoke:Don’t hurt her. Don’t be alone with her.He’d been back for fifteen minutes and he was already doing both.
His thumb was still wet with her tears when he whispered, “I can’t.”
Color bled into her cheeks in bold, angry crimson. She didn’t look at him. She stared into the middle distance, her fingertips hovering over her lips. Sensing the tension, the dogs began to pace.
“Hey.” Thomas tried to duck into her line of sight. “You’re not—We’ve both been— Well, what I mean is—”
He was floundering, and both of them knew it. Her right hand knifed sideways into her open palm in a mercy killing.
Stop.
He shut up at once, lacing his hands over the top of his head. The hard wall of her gaze was solid as rock. He had the faint, horrible sense he could beat himself bloody against it and still never get her to look at him the way she had only minutes prior—with a stare he’d felt in his spine.
I can’t be in here anymore, she signed.
“Wait.” His heart gave a hideous crack. “Vivienne, please just wait a—”
She slipped past him like water, into the hall and out of sight, the dogs trotting in her wake. The moment she was gone, he collapsed into his chair and pressed his hands over his face.
“Fuck!”
He swiped at his desk, sending a pencil holder flying. It hit the wall, pens scattering across the floor. It didn’t make him feel any better. Upstairs, Vivienne’s bedroom door shut with a slam. The sound reverberated all through the house, its message clear.
It felt, to Thomas, like a stone rolled over a tomb.
Vivienne met with Reed at eight o’clock the following morning. They sat one across from the other in the plush, plum-colored couches of Le Presse Café, Vivienne in a matching gingham set and Reed in a cut leather vest, the two of them a stark tableau of opposites.
“Let’s get this over with,” said Reed, setting his cold brew down like a gavel. Sweet foam sopped over the side. “The less time I have to spend in Walsh’s presence the better.”
The object of his ire sat outside on a bench, nursing a coffee of his own. The mere mention of Thomas sent a frothy wave of mortification tumbling through her.
She’d kissed him.
She’dkissed him, and he’d rejected her.
To make matters infinitely worse, he’d been a consummate professional all that morning—“Yes, Miss Farrow” this and “No, Miss Farrow” that—and his composure made Vivienne want to stab a fork through her eye. It was completely unfair, that she’d lain awake all night with humiliation burning a molten hole in her belly, and he was no worse for wear.
