Page 36 of 56 Days
She turns to him, seized by the hope that all is not lost but trying not to show it. But he’s looking unsure, or maybe too embarrassed to say whatever’s on his mind.
“What?” she prompts.
“I don’t know if...” He inhales deeply, slowly, and then everything after that comes out in a tumbling rush. “Well, I have two bedrooms, don’t I? We’d be okay if we were in the same household. We wouldn’t have to worry about the rules. And as it is, when I’m not working, I’m with you, so it wouldn’t really be that big of a change, would it?” He swallows. “And it doesn’t have to be like, an actualthing. It’s just a temporary arrangement. Two weeks. And we can play it by ear. Just take one day at a time. And if it doesn’t work out, you still havehere, so...”
He stops and looks at her hopefully.
She wants to smile and say yes but first, she wants to make sure.
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“What I’m saying is...” He squeezes her hand again. “Ciara, why don’t you move in with me?”
53 Days Ago
“And sounnecessary,” Ciara says. “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 in the cool gang, and that’s just...” She stops, apparently having lost her train of thought. “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.”
Secrets are destructive.
The words flip a switch.
Oliver had been happily riding a wave of warm, fizzy drunk thanks to those things Ciara had recommended, but now he feels that shift into an uncomfortable heat.
A sheen of cold sweat at his temples, a flush on his cheeks.
The sudden surety that he’s made a terrible mistake.
He chose this bar because it was deep inside the hotel and unlikely to be frequented by passersby; the clientele was mostly travelers from other places who would soon go back there. But now its distance from the outside, its lack of fresh air, makes his chest constrict with panic.
He can feel her eyes on him.
A single bead of sweat is threatening to depart from his right temple, the one she can see.
“I know what you mean,” he says absently.
This was supposed to be afact-findingmission. He’d decided to meet up with her, glean as much information as he could, and then use it to determine once and for all whether she was something he needed to worry about.
That’s what he’d told himself he was doing, anyway. He’d refused to dwell on how much he’d beenlooking forwardto doing it.
To begin with, everything had gone to plan. He hadn’t bothered booking tickets to that documentary; there was no point risking this kind of contact just to sit beside her silently in the dark for the night. They needed to talk. He was intending to “realize” he’d got the start time of the film wrong and suggest they go for a drink while they were waiting, but then she’d brought up cocktails and given him an easy in.
She evidently wasn’ttime-consciousand didn’t notice they were drinking themselves late and, better yet, didn’t care when she discovered this. It had all been working out.
So much so that he’d forgotten whatitwas supposed to be.
Getting to be normal always did that to him. The pretending could be potent. And helikedher, liked being around her, liked the way she made him feel.
Which was bad, because he couldn’t afford to feel good.
That was always when bad things started to happen.
“Sorry,” he says, shifting his body away from her and out of the booth. “I need another bathroom break.”
She frowns a little. “Three times in one night?”
“I’ve broken the seal.”
“I actually have to go, too. I’ll go when you get back.”
