Stella raises her brow, tilting her crate slightly. ‘I know someone who can help.’
‘Who?’
‘The zoo.’
‘Not exactly on tonight’s itinerary,’ I sigh.
‘It’s me or the zoo. They’ll die otherwise.’
I hate we’re already past the point of arguing.
It’s what good couples do. Besides, I’m still at her mercy, succumbing to the power of the minge.
I sigh. ‘Fine.’
I tell her I’m famished. Not tired, not peckish –famished.
We leave the field behind, the crate of bats rattling on the backseat of the car like a bad decision. Spain loomed on the horizon, hours of road ahead, but first – food.
‘Can’t deal with animals on an empty stomach,’ I nod.
‘Let’s hope the bats don’t plan a mutiny then,’ Stella mutters.
Twenty minutes later, we pull up, parked like we had a reservation and a reputation to match. The restaurant didn’t blink. It oozed quiet elegance, a Michelin-starred bistro tucked down a crooked lane no tourist would dare stumble into.
Its velvet draped windows pulse with candlelight and shadow, and the crystal chandeliers dangle like frozen teardrops above us. I’m sure she would agree it would be romantic under different circumstances. But then, I watch the way her fingers curl around her wineglass and I know she’s not breathing right. Not because of the food. Not the atmosphere. Because of me.
She sits across from me, her posture poised, but I catch the tension in her jaw, the way she studies her cutlery like it’s saying more than I am. She’s barely touched the duck, despite it being confit de canard, cherry glaze, and a crisp skin. I tuck into my tartare orTartare de boeuf au couteau a l’italienneas the maitre d’ had described, and I catch her looking at me between bites. I’m starving, and not just for food. The blood-bright beef marbled with rosemary and pepper soothes something feral inside me, so I eat slowly, deliberately. I want her to watch, to feel how tightly I’m coiled inside this suit. She’s not eating much, not pushing it away either. It’s a quiet rebellion. One I admire.
I reach into my breast pocket and purposely drop the small, plastic bag onto the white linen. The powder inside like fallen snow. Her spine goes rigid.
Good.
She thinks I’m about to unravel; that this is the part where the man sitting across from her turns into something dangerous. She’d be right again.
I don’t explain. I never do. I’ll let her ask the questions, but I’ll let her reach the wrong conclusions first. That’s where the power is. She’s still watching me. She thinks she’s being subtle, how she glances up from her wineglass and then back down like I haven’t noticed the way her pupils dilate every time I move.
You want to understand me, but only from a safe distance, don’t you?
I take the knife, and I press its edge into the powder I laid out. Two clean lines. Methodical, like folding laundry. Normal, even. Then I lean in. One inhale. One perfect, burning inhale. It rushes through me like whiskey burning the back of my throat, and I groan.
‘I never saw you as the type...’she speaks. And there it is – that note of dread laced with fascination. She’s already rewriting me in her head.
I smile as I meet her eyes. ‘Type?’
‘You know…’ she says, also leaning forward.
Good girl, still in the game.
She continues, ‘to snort cocaine.’
I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because she thinks she’s right. She thinks she’s peeling back my layers.
‘It isn’t cocaine,’ I say, and I watch her chest rise just a little quicker. She wants to ask,needsto ask.
‘What is it then?’
Knew it.
