By the time she leaves, the stars are out and I'm pleasantly warm from wine and laughter. Cat walks Sophie to her car while I carry dishes to the kitchen, my mind still buzzing from the evening.
I'm rinsing plates when Cat returns, her footsteps quiet on the stone floor.
"Leave those," she says. "I'll do them in the morning."
"I don't mind."
"I know you don't. You've got—" She stops, and I find her standing very close, her eyes fixed on my face. "You've got tomato. On your cheek."
I reach up to brush at it, but she's faster. Her hand comes up, her thumb sweeping gently across my cheekbone, and the touch goes straight down my spine.
She doesn't move her hand.
I don't move away.
"There," she murmurs, but she doesn't pull back. Her eyes are very green in the low light, and her lips are slightly parted, and I can feel the warmth of her breath on my skin.
Everything narrows to her thumb against my cheek and the drumming of my heart in my ears.
"Cat," I whisper, and I don't know if it's a question or an answer.
"Yeah." Her voice is rough. "I know."
She steps back, and the spell breaks. The kitchen rushes back into focus—the dishes in the sink, the remains of dinner on the counter, the ordinary reality of a Sunday evening.
"I should—" I start.
"Me too," she says.
Neither of us moves.
"Goodnight, Iris." Cat's smile is complicated, layered with things neither of us is ready to say. "Thanks for letting me teach you. You're not as hopeless as you think."
She's gone before I can respond, her footsteps fading down the hall, and I'm left standing in the kitchen with a dishcloth in one hand and my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
I press my fingers to my cheek where she touched me, and I can still feel the ghost of her warmth.
This is getting complicated. This is getting dangerous. This is getting—
Good, whispers a voice in my head. This is getting good.
I turn off the kitchen light and head to bed, and I don't let myself think about how right it felt to have her hand on my face. I don't let myself wonder what would have happened if she hadn't stepped back.
I definitely don't let myself hope.
But when I finally fall asleep, I dream of green eyes and gentle hands and the taste of rosé on someone else's lips.
12
CAT
The light in Provence does something impossible at this hour.
I've tried to explain it to people who haven't been here—the honey light, the purple shadows, the whole world looking like someone painted it in oils and then gilded the edges for fun. They nod politely and say "that sounds lovely," and I know they don't understand. You have to stand in the middle of it while the fields blaze purple-gold like they're on fire from the inside.
"Do you want to walk?"
The words are out before I've thought them through. Iris looks up from the book she's been pretending to read for the last hour—I know she's been pretending because she hasn't turned a page in twenty minutes—and there's something uncertain in her expression.
