Page 24 of Ruthless Claim

There’s food from the Italian place on 64th that I’ve been going to since childhood.

The wine is from a bottle Cillian had pulled out from the wine room. I have no idea if it’s good or not and based on the oaf’s tastes, I’m going to assume it’s bad.

But I’ve poured two glasses because I am committed to this.

I look at the table and take a deep breath.

This is either going to be fine or it’s going to be catastrophic.

The keys hit the entryway table then there’s footsteps.

He appears in the doorway and stops.

He’s still in his work clothes of dark pants and a charcoal dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.

The top two buttons are open like he already started decompressing in the elevator.

His auburn hair is slightly disheveled, like the day got its hands into it, and there’s more stubble along his jaw than there was at breakfast, shadowing that scar on his cheek.

He looks like trouble.

Scratch that, he always looks like trouble.

I have stopped being surprised by this and have not stopped being annoyed by it.

He looks at the table. He looks at me. He looks at the table again. “What’s this?”

“Dinner,” I say, with what I feel is admirable composure. “I had food brought in. I thought we could eat like two people who live together instead of strangers who happen to share a kitchen.”

He raises an eyebrow but crosses the room and pulls out his chair and sits down slowly, like he’s not entirely convinced he should.

Those blue eyes of his move around the table with the attention of a man cataloguing a potential trap.

I serve myself and pass him the containers and the whole thing is so aggressively, performatively normal that I almost want to laugh.

We eat in silence for a moment.

It’s the closest to peaceful we’ve been in two weeks and I’m aware of it in the way you’re aware of a lull in bad weather—grateful and not quite trusting it.

“How was your day?” I ask because you can’t have a pleasant dinner without conversation and I am an excellent conversationalist at mundane matters.

He looks up from his plate.

The blue eyes find me and focus with the unreadable attention he has, the one that gives you absolutely nothing back.

“Fine,” he says.

“Good.” I pick up my wine and take a sip. Dammit, it’s good. “The March opening is coming together. We finalized the installation layout today, the artist is⁠—”

“What are you doing?” He sets his fork down with a small, deliberate click.

I pause. “Having a conversation.”

“No.” He leans back slightly in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. It’s an infuriating gesture that makes his shoulders look like they belong to someone who builds things or breaks them. With Cillian it has always been the latter. “You don’t do that. Not with me. So what is it? What do you want?”

I feel the first flicker of irritation, and I breathe through it because I am committed to the strategy. “I want to eat dinner without it feeling like a tribunal,” I say evenly. “I want one evening where we aren’t looking for ways to make each other miserable. I know that’s apparently a radical concept.” I lift my glass toward him in a small gesture and offer him a small olive branch. “And this is a very good wine. Well done.”

Silence.