Oh, man, the sad eyes. Forget it, I’ll never win this argument. Maybe I can pay one of these nurses to go home with him, if the thought of staying with me is so awful.
“You—” He shifts on the bench, the paper covering the vinyl crinkling beneath him. “You’ve barely looked at me since we got out of there. If I scared you, or if the things I said—”
That fast, my own reflexes take over, some protective instinct I have for him, and I cross the tiny space, putting myself right in front of him. I wait until he raises his eyes to mine again, then reach out my hand—oh, it’s shaky now—and set it on top of his.
I see his chest expand with the breath he takes.
“You didn’t scare me. None of it scared me.”
It’s not all the way true, of course. Itwasscary, but not in the way he means. It was scary to see him again, to confront him again. It was scary to remember parts of our fight, to feel the hurt feelings that still exist between us. But I stayed, and if I can make him stay tonight—
“None of it?” he asks, looking down at our hands.
I know what he’s asking.I like you so much, Meg.
“None of it.”
He moves, turning his wrist so our palms press together, so his fingers link with mine. I swallow reflexively.Holding hands with Reid, I think, routes through the city unrolling in my head like a map on a table.What if I never want to walk any other way?
“But I think we should come back to this tomorrow,” I say. “When you’re feeling better.”
For once, it doesn’t feel like I’m avoiding anything. It feels like Reid is coming home with me tonight to sleep on my couch and to get annoyed with my nocturnal nursing efforts, and it feels like we’ll wake up tomorrow and practice at this in the clear, completely sober light of day.
“Did she move out yet?” he asks quietly.
I feel my brows lower in confusion. “Sibby?”
He tips his downturned head in a small nod.
“No, but usually on Fridays she stays with—”
I don’t finish before his shoulders slump in relief, his head dropping forward even more. With him sitting on the table, and me standing here, the top of his bent head is right at the level of my chin.
I realize what he must be worried about.
“She wouldn’t care, anyway. We’ve lived together a long time. Both of us have had . . . uh, overnight guests before.”
Reid’s hand squeezes mine gently. He’s holding my hand as though I belong to him. As though we belong to each other.
“A few more weeks,” I say, and for the first time since I got the call about Reid I think about Sibby moving out, about the other fight I have waiting for me, and I take a breath through my nose. “I think the official date is on a—”
“I was worried,” he says, interrupting me. He lifts our joined hands, holding them in the space between our bodies, andoh. His breath tickles the back of my hand. My sensitive, sensitive hand. Where all my talent and all my most secret thoughts come from. It’s like having clinging, confining bandages removed.
“Worried?”
“I kept thinking,” he says, his voice lower now—either my closeness or maybe the fatigue finally setting in. I take a step forward and shift our hands, making a small, inadequate pillow out of the back of mine for his brow. He takes the hint, letting the uninjured side of his forehead rest, warm and heavy, against my knuckles.
How must this look, this picture of us? A knight bowing in service to his lady. I see my name in an illuminated, medieval-manuscript style.
MARGARET THEBRAVE
“I kept thinking,” he says again, “it’d be hard for you, her leaving. And what if I missed it?”
“You didn’t.” My voice has lost all its steadiness, but it doesn’t much bother me now. The hand that’s not clutched to his—it lifts, seemingly of its own accord. I reach out and stroke my fingers through his thick mass of red-blond hair, and I think his whole body shivers. I think mine does, too.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t call.”
Reid the Repentant.
