Page 54 of Reckless
“No one has ever paid for me.It’s kind of sweet.”
I paid.
But my heart pounded.I wasn’t trying to be sweet though we left without another word.
We stopped on the sidewalk.
“Tomorrow?”he asked.“Will you be ready?”
“Yes.”
He waited.Something changed in his face.Then he nodded once.“Fair.”
I took a step back.
“Tomorrow,” I said.“And if you show up at my apartment again, uninvited, I will make your obituary hilarious.”
One corner of his mouth moved.“I believe you.”
I turned before he could say anything else.My heart pounded as I walked to my car, got inside, and only when the door shut did I let my forehead drop against the steering wheel for one second and admit the full, ugly truth.
The rules were good, the terms were smart, and the timeline was clear.
And absolutely none of that had done a single thing to fix that standing too close to Xerses Norouzi made my knees weak and for me to wish for impossible things.
Six
Public Debut
Xerses
By Friday afternoon, my mother had transformed the compound into a campaign.But there was another current moving underneath this weekend now, and every person in the family felt it whether they admitted it or not.Kelly.
Or more specifically, Kelly arriving with me.
I stepped into the main hall and saw my mother halfway up a ladder directing floral arrangements like the future of Persian hospitality depended on exact placement.
“It looks fine,” I said.
She didn’t look down.“It does not.”
“It does.”
“It’s flowers.”
“To you.”She adjusted a branch by hand and finally glanced down at me.“You’re early.”
She meant more than arrival time.
“You look pleased with yourself,” I said.
My mother descended the ladder with help she did not need and handed off the arrangement notes to a staff member before coming toward me.She kissed my cheek once, then the other, and smoothed an invisible flaw from my shirt.
“You look handsome.”
“I always look handsome.”
“That’s true.”Her smile sharpened.“Kelly will be here at six.”
