Page 116 of Antihero

That smile. Man, that smile. She loosed her hair and shook it out so it fell gloriously around her neck. “Not tonight. I’d need more evidence. Build a case. Those things take time. Sometimes too much time.”

He actually laughed.

“I love you, you know, Evan. More than just … whatever we are. Like we’re family. But not in a gross way given we, you know. But I can’t keep doing this.” Her finger toggled from him to her to him to her, the back-and-forth of the dance they did around their attraction, the impossibility of acting on it, the impossibility of ignoring it, the impossibility of them. “Not with Peter. He needs something solid if he’s to learn to be solid for someone else someday.”

Evan stared at the laundry, the browning lilies. “Right,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

“But also? If he’s away at a sleepover…” Evan broke. He felt a big dumb smile bloom across his face.

“What?” She was trying not to crack up now. “What are you possibly smiling at?”

“I was gonna say a joke. But it’s so bad.”

“Let’s hear it. Come on.”

“I can’t.”

“I believe in you.”

He recovered. “If he’s away at a sleepover,” he said, “don’t forget my middle name.”

Silence. Her face did not move for maybe three full seconds, a very long time with a terrible joke hanging in the air.

And then she laughed, a graceless, beautiful bark of a laugh. “Mr. Danger, I can promise you this. I will never be your booty call.”

“‘Booty call,’” he said. “Verbal escalation. Asymmetrical tactical response.”

She flopped her hand down on the cushion next to him, palm up. He took it. They held hands like third-graders. Her skin was warm, soft. He caught the faint scent of lemongrass, knew it was coming off her skin, tried not to look at the gentle slope at the side of her throat where that rich chestnut hair fell.

“This is solid, too,” she said, squeezing his hand. “But for Peter, what I want for him, it’s a different kind of solid.”

“Like what?”

She considered for a long time. “My friends, my people, I have access to them differently. In the messy uncertainty. I can be there for them and them for me. And that strength to receive help, and to give it, to trust when you don’t know what else to do? That’s intimacy.”

I don’t know how to do that, he thought.

She watched him closely. “It doesn’t make my way any better than yours. But that’s a point of connection I need. To feel, hmm, to feel not alone. And if you can provide that, great. And if you can’t, I understand. But I know what I need. I’ve tried it your way. It doesn’t work for me.”

“I understand.”

He released his grip. A moment later she loosened her hand, too, letting him go. He looked at her softly, with affection, rose, and started out.

With his hand on the doorknob, he halted.

He contemplated one thing he could offer to her, not as an olive branch or a gift, but as a point of connection they both needed. It took awhile but he was patient, standing there, thinking, his usual freedom just beyond the door. She was patient, too.

He turned around. He walked back over. She remained sitting on the couch.

“If I do that,” he said, “if I include you in the … uncertainty, then you cannot prosecute me.”

“No.” Her eyes were shining, those rust flecks pronounced in the deep, wise brown. “When it comes to my people, I must recuse myself.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”