My cheeks heat in spite of the cold drink. I’m running through the stream of chatter I’ve kept up for the last half hour—the nice night, the guy who’s passed us on a unicycle a bunch of times, my curiosity in general about people who play Frisbee. I should know by now I can’t hide anything from Reid, not really. What he sees, what he hears—he asks about.
I shrug. “A lousy day at work, that’s all.”
“Your sketches didn’t go well?” That he asks—that he knew—is a reminder of how much closer we’ve been over the past week, how much we’ve stayed in touch.
“They were fine. It’s . . . a difficult client. Not a big deal.”
“Difficult how?”
I feel cornered. I don’t want to say anything about Lark, anything that would violate the privacy that’s so important to her. So I settle for putting the blame where it really belongs.
“He’s rude,” I say, keeping my eyes up and ahead, on all the signless placidity surrounding us.
Reid pauses on the path, his body going still.
“Rude how?”
Standing there, Reid doesn’t look all that different from the man who came into the shop all those weeks ago. Cold, determined, impatient. Looking for answers. And what am I going to say, that I went to a client’s house and judged her marriage? That I think she’s living a worse mistake than the one I so recklessly, secretly warned him about? That’ll be a great reminder for him, I’m sure.
This is worse than being cornered. It’s like being in a minefield, danger in every step I take.
“Well, first of all,” I say, trying for a joke, “he wears these bracelets.”
Reid blinks. “Pardon?”
I sigh. “Never mind. It’s hard to explain.”
“Meg.” He manages to make that single syllable sound shorter than usual. “Just be—” He breaks off and shakes his head in exasperation, and I can tell it’s not with himself. “Was he rude to you?”
Oh.
He’s being—protective? I definitely don’t want Reid to go all the way to Red Hook to punch Cameron in the face, but I am also not entirely opposed to adding this to my growing library of Reid-specific fantasies.Alas, cravats, pistols at dawn.
“He was rude to his wife. In front of me. It’s not my favorite thing, being around that kind of tension.”
I should ask Lachelle to make me a calligraphy certificate for Understatement of the Year. It’ll be worth it, if Reid drops this.
At first I think he will, giving one of those tips of his head that I take as a cue to keep walking. But then he says, “So what did you do?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “I made nice and got out of there. He’s awful, and I’m pretty sure she knows it, but it’s not really my business.”
“Well,” Reid says, and even from that one syllable I can hear an edge, an unkindness in his voice. “I suppose you could always hide it in some of your letters.”
Everything—Reid, the park, my heart—everything goes still. Maybe the smoothie in my belly doesn’t, but I sure wish it would. This is it—this is the confrontation I’ve been dreading with him. This is the one I’d stupidly let myself think we wouldn’t need to have, ever since his perfect, quietEspecially me.
Today of all goddamn days.
Reid lifts his hand, scrapes it through his hair. “Forget I said that.”
For a few seconds all I can do is stare at him. I’m stunned and shocked and hurt.
And then—then I’m suddenly soangry.I’mthe mine, long-buried but still explosive, and I have definitely, definitely been stepped on.Why couldn’t you have left it alone?I’m thinking, for the second time today, but this time all my frustration is leveled at the person standing in front of me. The person whoneverlets me keep it light. The person who’s unblocked me into all this trouble.
“Forget yousaidit?”
“Yes,” he answers. As though this is a perfectly reasonable request.
“This is what we’re doing here? This is you being my . . . myfriend? Waiting for your perfect opportunity to bring it up again?”
