The move is so—immediate. So instinctive and concerned and direct, and so veryReid, and that gives me the three-seconds-from-crying feeling again. I lower my eyes, stare down at my shoes, which now feel more than a half size too small. He smells the same as he did last weekend—soap and that whisper of swimming pool—and if this turns into actual crying I don’t trust myself to resist the face-pressing instinct.
“I knew it,” he says. “You’re sick?”
“Not really.” Without thinking, I smooth a hand over my stomach, low where it aches.
“You have—” He breaks off, puts his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Aha,” he says, softly.
I can’t help but laugh. This is all veryMasterpiece Theatre, like old-timey times when people couldn’t say the wordlegoranklebecause it was too morally disturbing. It feels as though he’s invited me—with all his serious, starchy caution—to say it out loud.
“If that ‘aha,’ means ‘your period,’ then yes. You are correct.”
He doesn’t clear his throat or set his jaw or get a wash of pink across his cheeks. He gives a skeptical glance to the small purse—a real miscalculation, I admit, since I can’t fit a military-grade heating pad inside of it—and says, “Do you have everything you need?” as though he’s planning to go into the nearest Duane Reade and buy me a bag of supplies.
The funny thing is, I think he actually would.In which aisle would I find tampons?he would say, in that very serious voice.
I tug on the hem of my favorite shirt, an old striped button-up that’s been washed so many times it’s as soft as the sheets on my bed. “I’m okay. I don’t want to quit yet. I’m just feeling . . . yuck.”
I fully expect him to furrow at that description, but he only nods and looks up ahead, where there’s a small, tree-canopied enclosure, black wrought-iron gating separating it from the busy sidewalk and street.
“Let’s go sit for a while. You can put your feet up.”
I stare at him, and this time he actually does flush a little.
“My sister always does that. When she feels . . .” He trails off.
“Yuck?” I finish for him, smiling softly, less at the word than at what Reid has told me—something about his private life, something that’s not tied up with his broken engagement. “You have a sister?”
Another nod while he keeps those blue eyes so focused on me, his fan-fucking-tastic face fixed in concern.
“She’s younger. She still lives at home with my parents.”
“Oh,” I say, but suddenly I have ten thousand questions, so many questions about Reid and his life that the weight of them distracts me from the extremely unpleasant weight in my abdomen. Itwouldbe nice to sit for a while, to put my feet up. I’ll rest and drink some water, and if it doesn’t help, I’ll make my way back to the train and go home to sleep it off, ask Reid if he can meet again in a couple of days.
But for now, while I’m waiting it out—why not play a game of twenty questions?
“There aresevenof you?” I say, my voice high-pitched.
Reid flattens his lips, but this is the kind of lip flattening that I now know means he’s hiding a smile.
“There are.”
I adjust my ass on the hard slats of the bench beneath me. It may not be all that comfortable in terms of furniture, but it’s lovely, this enclosure—small and shady and quiet, even though it’s only a few steps off the busy traffic on Sixth. Around the various landscaped beds are low, arched black fences, and while the landscaping is still sparse this early, most of the bushes are full and green, and the trees above us rustle with a light breeze.
Best of all? There’re two signs that seemed to greet us when we came in, both on the same wall of the building that forms one edge of the park. They’re old, faded, and partially obscured by the trees, both advertising the same local pharmacy that’s no longer in business. One has white letters on a black background; the other, black letters on white. Sans serif fonts, sturdy and practical, more lovely for the wear and tear, and every time I ask Reid a question, he looks up at them.
“Do you all look thesame?” I ask now, my eyes wide. Seven Sutherland siblings, he’d told me. Six boys and one girl. After this I’m going to ask if they ever performed a concert in Austria, or had a series of romance novels written about them.
It is ridiculous how much better I feel.
Reid looks at the sign, his brow furrowed. “Some of us do, I suppose. Connor and Garrett and I, we all have this hair color, same as my dad.”
Do they all have your jawline?!I want to ask.
“But Owen and Ryan and Seth and Cady all have my mom’s dark hair.”
“How do you remember all their names?” I’m only half-joking. A family that big—I can’t really imagine.
He smiles over at me. “You don’t forget your siblings’ names. No matter how many of them there are.”
