And he answered specifically.
Very specifically.
“The first time I saw her she was extolling the virtues of a movie calledDemon Knightto a guy who couldn’t have seemed less interested to hear it. All hands and eyes and words a mile a minute. Passionate about the idea that the value of something wasn’t just in whatever standard had been set by some old dude a hundred years ago. Passionate about everything—except taking care of herself. One of her laces was untied, as it almost always was. She’d missed part of her hair with the brush, her cardigan was on inside out, the strap on her book bag was almost going, most likely because she’d spent her new-book-bag money on something someone else needed. A total disaster, in other words,” he said, then, just as she was about to roll her eyes from her place in the wings of the stage, he met her gaze. “I thought she was the most attractive woman I’d ever laid eyes on. And I sayattractiveon purpose, because sure, she’s beautiful,she’s gorgeous, but it was more than that. More than just looking at someone and seeing that everything is pleasing to your eye. I was drawn to her, drawn in by her, in a way I’d never experienced before.”
And then what was she supposed to do?
Half of what he had said was true. The guy was Trent Parker, who hated any movie or book that wasn’t critically acclaimed. The book bag thing was partly right; she’d given her good one to Jenny Wong, the girl who’d been struggling without one. And she remembered storming past him on her way out of the library.
So he had definitely seen her.
But the rest? Saying she was beautiful?
The way he framed it—like she had attracted him?
It was utter nonsense, just complete balderdash. Yet somehow, he made it sound so convincing her heart stuttered in her chest. She found herself putting a hand there, even though she knew he was looking. He didn’t stop the moment the words were over. In fact, he didn’t stop until the moderator asked another question.
But the question itself didn’t make things any better.
It was about when they first truly met. And he answered, he answered. Like the lie had somehow always been inside him. “I used to hate sleeping. Lying there, feeling things I didn’t want to feel about things I didn’t want to feel them about. So I’d get up, go for a run. Go for a swim, wear myself out. Drop like a ten-ton weight when I finally got back to my bed. An ideal situation for me. But then one night, she caught me. She found me out. And when I dared to share with her, she was as good about it as I knew she’d be. I let myself open up to her,and she surrounded me in warmth. I fell in love with her then. Though of course I have no clue at all why she fell in love with an oaf like me.”
Maybe I would have done if you had opened up to me, her brain blurted out immediately.
But only because her brain was apparently running on fumes and the memory of being thoroughly fucked.He made you come once and you’re rewriting history along with him, she chided herself.Even though you have no reason for it. He’s selling a story for an audience. Who are you selling this to?
“I don’t know,” she said—entirely under her breath.
Though some lighting guy still looked at her funny. She had to go sit in the greenroom, which in this case was more like a place where PowerPoint presentations were usually delivered. There were stacked chairs in one corner, and a smart board on one wall, and the couch she sat on seemed brand new, courtesy of IKEA.
But it was at least empty of anyone who might see her behave weirdly.
No chipper liaison who wanted to take a picture with him doing bunny ears behind her head (which he had of course refused with one stern look). No publicist from Harchester who clearly thought Daisy was trying to do the job Miller never actually let anyone do anyway (she suspected the woman had gone to the bar across the street). It was just blessed silence for a good forty minutes.
Really, she should have been calm and reasonable by the time he was done.
But then he abruptly burst into the room and slammed the door behind himself before anyone else could slipthrough, and suddenly she was right back to square one. Worse than square one, honestly. She saw his face, and all she could think wasOkay, I totally get what he meant about being attracted to someone.
Then he spoke, and things escalated pretty steeply.
“Where did you go, I needed you,” he said.
And he took hold of her when he did it, too. For a second all she could think about was that scene in his third book,Once She Was Gone, when Dillon finally admits that it devastated him to watch her go. When he grabs her and begs her not to. She even heard a line from it in her head.
Losing you was like losing the only thing I could bear about myself.
Then he abruptly started rushing her out of the room, and the line blinked out. She almost laughed as she ran to keep up with him. “Seemed like you were fine, going on all the things you were saying,” she said to the back of his head.
But he didn’t turn.
He kept on down the glossy hallway to the golden elevator at the end.
“Exactly. I was saying things. A lot of things. I don’t even know where they were coming from. They just kept bursting out of me like someone uncorked a bottle, and I couldn’t get it to stop. Her last question was aboutsex, Emmett. It was about sex and I answered it.”
“What did you say?”
“That I have you twice a night.”
He said it the same way he said the rest—a little harried about it, almost scolding himself, impatient to getout of there. The only difference was: this one stopped her in her tracks. The doors of the elevator almost closed after him before she could get inside.
