Page 81 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“Amazing,” Becca says, again to the ceiling. “Your apartment is incredible, your bed is incredible, and your girlfriend is the funniest person I’ve ever met, and she doesn’t even know it.” She sits up. “Hi. I don’t think we were ever officially introduced—other than the street and the bar. I’m the best friend. I’ve heard literally everything about you.”

Cal looks at me. The word ‘girlfriend’ hangs in the air next to her wild lie about me telling her everything about Cal.

We didn’t discuss our relationship, but it’s probably not far off and it sounds nice. Even if it is riding on a joke from Becca’s mouth.

“She hasn’t,” I snap, poking her with my foot. “She is exaggerating.”

“I’m not,” she notes cheerfully.

Cal’s mouth does the thing where it pulls to one side, and it makes me warm inside. He looks at Becca with the careful, curious expression of a man encountering someone who he suspects might be an equal force of nature.

“It’s good to finally meet you—officially,” he says, and I know he means it. “And my house is your house.”

Becca points at him. “Don’t be charming to me, I’m on to you.” She slides off the bed. “Now show me the kitchen, because I need to know what we’re working with if we’re all living here and Max won’t let anyone order delivery because ‘the address can be traced.’” She does my voice badly. “Which, fair, but also I want noodles.”

Cal looks at me again. His expression is helpless in a way I have never seen on him and finddeeply delightful.

“This way,” he says to Becca, and she follows him out.

I stay on the bed for a moment. The river glitters outside. Bart has followed Cal and Becca out into the kitchen, and everything feels so normal.

I think about the fact that a month ago, I got on a plane that didn’t go to a regular airport. I think about the trunk with the biometric safe and a pilot who didn’t want to shake Cal’s hand and the moment on the plane stairs when I was deciding whether to stay or go. And how there was only ever one answer, even if it took me a minute to catch up to it.

From the kitchen I hear Becca say something that makes Cal laugh—a real laugh shocked out of him no doubt—and something in my chest does a thing.

A jumpy, happy thing that makes this feel so right and perfect and wonderful.

And I just know that even after I finish school in six months, there’s no way I’m ever leaving.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Cal

Theyreorganizedmykitchen.

I don’t know when they did it.

Becca arrived around eleven this morning and I was in my office with Rudi going over specifics of the Volkov operation until four.

Gio was out with Max and Becca for the day.

And at some point during those few hours, the coffee station got rearranged, the pantry got alphabetized—I didn’t know I had enough items in the pantry towarrant alphabetization—and there is now a plant on the island behind the sink that I have no memory of anyone bringing into this apartment.

I didn’t know any of this happened last night when Max crawled into bed after spending the evening with Becca laughing and eating Chinese food until two in the morning.

“Where did the plant come from?” I eye Max from across the kitchen.

“Becca found it.” Max is looking out the windows at the river.

She’s in an old Boston University sweatshirt that I assume Becca brought with the rest of Max’s clothes. Her hair is up in a high ponytail and she’s wearing jeans that fit her in a way I am trying to ignore for the structural health of my composure.

“Apparently there’s a little farmer’s market three blocks south. She went at six this morning while Gio thought she was still asleep.”

“Gio is going to have a problem with that.”

“Gio already had a problem with that. Becca told him she moves like a ghost when she wants to, and he should work on his observational skills.” She takes a sip of the coffee. “She’s not kidding. She used to sneak ice cream into my house at midnight when we were at the end of a bad week. I never once heard her on the stairs.”

I look at the plant. It’s small, something with trailing green leaves, already making the white kitchen look less like a showroom and warmer—lived in, loved.