Page 13 of 56 Days
She mumbles, “Thank you,” to her glass.
“It’s just a bit special, isn’t it?”
He could mean the bar. Or the drinks.
Or this night, with her in it.
“Here’s what I like about this place.” She’s careful to speak her words more slowly than she’s thinking them, distinctly pronouncing each one. Or so she hopes. “It’s hidden. It’s not a secret, but it’s not on show. You can’t know this is here when you walk past this building on the street, but come inside and turn a corner and it’s revealed to you, this beauty that’s been here all the time. Waiting. And I love that. I love discovering places like this because it makes me wonder about whatelseis inside all these buildings I walk past every day. What else is just waiting to be discovered? There’s a whole hidden city.Severalhidden cities. All hiding in plain sight in this one.”
“So you like secrets,” Oliver says.
“No.” It comes out too quickly, sounding too harsh. She says it again, slower and softer. “No. It’s... There’s a place in New York, a bar, that you have absolutely no way of knowing is there unless you’re told about it by someone else who has been told about it because no part of it faces the street and there’s no sign, and the only way to get in is through a secret door inanotherbar.”
“That sounds exhausting,” he says.
“And sounnecessary. Like, just serve good drinks and be nice to people and stop with all the shite. But that kinda thing—that’sa secret. And secrets are about denying people things. The truth, yes, but also the experience, the knowledge... You’re just trying to keep them out of the cool gang. You’re trying to decide who gets to be in the cool gang, and that’s just...” Ciara stops, having lost her train of thought. Where had she been going with that? The warmth of the alcohol is spreading unbidden throughout her body. “It’s not secrets I like. It’s discovering things that are new to me but actually were always there. Secrets are a different thing. They’re destructive.”
Silence.
She dares to turn and look at him and finds that his eyes are on her. For a second she thinks he might be about to move to kiss her, and she hopes not because she’s not ready, she’s not prepared, and she’s definitely a little bit drunk and she’d rather not be, not forthat, but instead he nods and says, “I know what you mean,” and then that he has to go to the bathroom again.
“Three times in one night?”
“I’ve broken the seal,” he says gravely.
“I actually have to go, too. I’ll go when you get back.”
“I can wait?”
“I can wait longer.” She waves a hand. “Go on.”
This time, when he’s gone, she forces herself to finish her water in three long gulps. Then she takes one of the clean cocktail napkins from the table, folds it neatly, and tucks it inside her bag. When she looks up the waiter is standing there, smirking at her conspiratorially, and she flashes him a guilty smile and says, “A souvenir.”
“It’s going well, then,” he says.
“I think so.”
“I think so too.”
He sets down their fresh drinks, winks at her, and leaves.
When they’ve both drained their glasses, he suggests they make a move. She’s surprised by how late it is—almost ten, how didthathappen?—and she says so. She finds out that he paid the bill while she was in the bathroom and she protests but not too hard, and thanks him.
His hand is on the small of her back again as they descend the stairs, but it’s pressed firmly against her body now. She’s carrying her coat over her arm and can feel the heat of his skin through the thin material of her dress. She hopeshecan’t feel the band of her tights sticking into her flesh. She wonders what hecanfeel.
They face their own reflections in the dark glass of the doors, and she is struck by how good they look, him and her, coupled together.
And then, how quickly this has happened, how fast they’ve gone from strangers in a supermarket line to him here beside her, touching her, telling her things about himself.
Maybe thiscanbe easy.
But what comes next?
She assumes they will go somewhere else, have one for the road, and maybe grab somelate-nightfast-foodsomewhere—God knows she could use it—or maybe—
“Can we get a cab?” Oliver says to the doorman, a different one from before.
This throws her but she doesn’t outwardly react. She wants to know where they’re getting this cab to but she also doesn’t want to threaten the delicate equilibrium of these next few moments. She feels like a time traveler exercising extreme caution in the present, which is actually the past, because she knows how good the future is and doesn’t want it to change one bit.
