Page 54 of When Ice Queens Collide
“You're not.”
“I am.”
“You're not.” Alexandra's voice was steady. “You're telling me the truth. That's a different thing.”
Simone laughed once, short and wet, and then she was crying, just briefly, just enough that she had to wipe her face with the back of the hand that wasn't in Alexandra's. Alexandra pretended not to see, which was its own kind of witnessing, and Simone came back from it without having to perform a recovery or shrug it off.
They walked past the bend, past the spruce. Simone didn't look at it. Alexandra didn't ask.
“I have something to say too,” Alexandra said. “If you're finished.”
“I'm finished.”
Alexandra was quiet for a stretch of the trail. There was a particular thing Simone noticed that Alexandra did when she was choosing words she meant to keep. She went stiller in the upper body, her chin lowered a fraction, and her eyes settled on a middle distance.
“I knew before Elements,” Alexandra said. “I didn't know I knew. You answered a question of mine about a regulatory matter, and the answer wasn't tactical. I wanted to keep asking you questions. I told myself it was professional respect. It wasn't.”
“What was it?”
“I'd been alone for twelve years, and you were the first person I'd met who I wanted to be in a room with for reasons I couldn't put in a neat box.”
Simone's hand tightened around Alexandra's before she'd thought about it.
“I'm not graceful at this either,” Alexandra said. “I haven't done it before. I asked you that question on the headland because I was tired of not asking it. I want you to understand that I asked knowing what the worst answer would have cost me.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” Alexandra glanced at her. The corner of her mouth lifted very slightly. “For the record, though, you didn't give me the worst answer.”
“I know.”
There was the smallest exhale, almost a laugh. Alexandra's. Simone felt it more than heard it.
“Alexandra?”
“Yes?”
“I want to be sure you heard the part where I said I'm not leaving.”
“I heard it.”
The ground was tilting down toward the trailhead. Another minute and they'd be out of the trees, and the lot would be there, and the world would resume.
“I don't have a plan for tomorrow, for any of it. I usually have a plan.”
“We'll make one.”
Simone nodded, and she became aware again of how warm Alexandra’s hand in hers was. She matched her pace down the slope, half a step shorter than her natural stride, and didn't think about it. At the trailhead, the parking lot was empty except for their two cars. The sun had dropped behind the headland, and the light over the lot was the cold blue that came right before the dark.
When they stopped beside Alexandra's car, Simone let go of Alexandra's hand. Cold air came back into her palm, and her fingers felt strange without Alexandra's between them. Shestood there for a half-second longer than she needed to before she stepped back.
“Will you come home with me?” Alexandra asked.
“Yes.”
“I haven't thought about dinner.”
“I'll figure something out from what you have.”
