"I am thedelightfuldisappointment, Maxie, please." He shoots me a look as he sips his beer. “Margot just hasn’t realized it yet.”
Wren snorts into her prosecco.
Zero looks pleased. Sips his beer. He's on what passes, for Zero, as best behavior—which is not the same thing as harmless. He's still watching Wren the way he watches everyone: sideways, amused, already turning over what she's made of and which thread he might pull to find out. The only difference tonight is that the claws are sheathed.Mostly. I can see him deciding she'sinteresting, and with Zero, interesting is never entirely good news.
It is, I realize, the closest Zero gets to company manners—and even his company manners have teeth.
I love that about him too.
Richard comes in from the back hall in a sweater vest, holding a section of newspaper, looking baffled that there’s a guest in his house as if it isn’t the only thing Margot has been talking about for a week.
"Oh. Wren. Hello. Welcome. Hello."
"Hi, Mr. Graves."
"Richard, please."
"Richard. Hi."
"Margot was just telling me—" he waves vaguely with the newspaper toward the kitchen "—something about a lemon tart? Bane apparently made one.Bane."
"...did he," Wren says, very carefully.
"He says he did." Richard frowns, as though the tart is a small puzzle he can’t parse. "I have known that all his life and I’ve never once seen him near an oven." A pause. His mouth curls in a frown. "Lemon, though? I've never quite understood lemon as a dessert. It's a cleaning product flavor. Why would you—"
"It's my favorite," Wren says.
Silence
It isn’t a long silence. It is, however, a complete one—the particular airless quiet of a man realizing, in real time, that he has insulted a guest's taste in the first ninety seconds of knowing her. Richard's face goes through three distinct stages of horror.
"I—that’s—what I meant—"
"Smooth, Dad," Zero says, delighted. "Real smooth. I’m sure you’re her favorite of all of us so far. You want to tell herwhich of her books you don't like next? Really round the evening out?"
"I didn’t—"
"Typical."
"Zero." Richard's voice goes sharp, like Zero found the soft place and pressed. "I was making conversation."
"You were making it worse."
"ZERO."
"Drinksfirst, Richard," Margot calls from the kitchen. "Drinks. Bring everyone in. Honey, can you set the table?"
Richard, given an exit, takes it with visible relief—folding his newspaper under his arm, telling Wrenwelcome, truly, ignoring all of us on his way past, and disappearing toward the kitchen.
The second he's through the door, Zero sets down his beer, takes my chin in two fingers, tips my face toward his, and kisses me.
Quick. Unhurried in its quickness, somehow. It only lasts a second and a half but hasminewritten all over it.
He lets go. Picks his beer back up. Resumes drinking it like nothing happened.
I turn—warm to the ears—and find Wren staring at the two of us over the rim of her tiny prosecco, her eyes enormous.
"...is this," she says slowly, "what it's like here? All the time? Is the whole house just—" she gestures, a small helpless circle that takes in Zero, me, the kiss, the doorway Richard left through, the entire Graves estate "—this?"
