Page 56 of 32 Days in May

“You really want to go there?” He pops an eyebrow, lifting a forkful of eggs to his mouth. “Truth or dare, Nadia.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Truth.”

“Why are you in Evergreen?” he demands, without missing a beat.

The French toast turns solid in my stomach, like I’ve swallowed a brick whole. At a loss for my own words, I borrow Liv’s. “I ran away. I lost my job, and I was humiliated and embarrassed, and I just wanted to be somewhere no one would find me. I’m hiding like a coward.” This is all true, if only partially.

Marco’s gone completely still. “Same.”

“I thought you were house-sitting for your uncle.”

He scoffs. “That house has more security cameras than a Manhattan vape shop. Why would he need me?” Marco shakes his head. “No. Am I staying at my uncle’s house? Sure, but it all started when I didn’t get that part in Brokeback—the one I really wanted.” He lets out a terse laugh at himself. “I’ve never wanted an acting job this badly before. I was always on autopilot, doing what I had to do because I had no other skills or because my mom really needed money or because my friends needed me. But this one . . .”

He pauses, reorganizing his features to push back the hurt bubbling right up to the surface. “I don’t know, this one was for me. I took years off, went to college. I studied acting and filmmaking. When I didn’t get it—when my agent called me—I knew right away I was going to relapse. I was like, cool. Hung up and something in me decided I was going to relapse. I knew I had to get out of town . . .” Marco clears his throat. “And then I did it anyway, kind of. So, here I am—what? Seven days sober? I’m thirty-three, and I’m starting over.”

I search for his foot under the table, circling his ankle with my feet. “Me too.” Tell him, a voice whispers. Tell him everything.

I shove the voice away, stuffing it deep inside myself. This moment isn’t about me. I want to be there for Marco—maybe in a way I wish someone had been there for me. “Look, just because you wanted to relapse and just because you drank—that doesn’t mean it isn’t amazing that you’ve stayed sober all those years. It doesn’t make it any less impressive how far you’ve come. I mean this in the absolute best way possible—you are so normal.”

Marco’s expression pulls and for a moment I’m terrified I’ve said too much, somehow accidentally dropped all my cards on the table. He pushes his eggs around before taking another bite. Then, his eyes flicker.

“It’s so unfair.” This comment is directed at his coffee mug. “You’ve just existed all these years, and I only get to have you now.”

My heart skips and stalls, and I have to keep from actually pressing my hand to my chest. Marco’s suave. He’s charismatic; he knows what to say, when to say it. I can feel it when he’s turned on that light inside himself—the one that got him Vinny Baldacco at eighteen with no prior acting experience. Now, in his thirties, Marco is as rehearsed as he is raw. I can tell vulnerability like this isn’t in his playbook.

No, this comment comes from deep inside him and as soon as the words pass through his lips, he looks like he’s torn between grinning and taking them back.

I tighten the grip I have on his ankle under the table, knocking my knees against his. “Truth or dare.”

Marco gives me a flat look as if he’s saying, More? “Truth.”

I run my tongue over my lip. “Why one month? This . . . this doesn’t seem like something you usually do.”

He laughs softly, a chuckle in the back of his throat. “Well, for one, I think you’re fucking beautiful. And I guess I knew there was no way I’d get you to agree to go out with me again after that first disaster night. So, I had to trap you.” He lifts a piece of bacon from his plate, flailing it at me. “Even when you really want something, you have to prove to yourself that you actually really want it.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “And you think I really want you?”

My barbing perks him up again. Marco straightens in his chair and swivels his hat around to face forward, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. He lifts his chin at me. “Truth.”

I nod, accepting his demand. “Hit me.”

Marco folds his arms on the table and he leans forward, eyes creasing at the corners. “Tell me the last time you had sex like last night.”

A heat ignites in my hips and spreads over me instantly, starting deep and low and working upward over my chest and neck, until I know my ears are pink. He waits patiently for me to answer while I squirm in my chair, but under the table I can feel his knee knocking against mine.

Finally, I relent, meet his gaze full-on. “Never.”

The subway to Brooklyn is so packed, we have to force our way into a car. Then, we claim the last open spot in the dead center of the train, between a man in a winter coat and a woman with a suspiciously large backpack. Marco squares his hat and pulls the brim low, placing one hand on the small of my back and holding on overhead with the other. The car’s so hot, I immediately feel the fabric between us dampen. Everyone’s this close—the woman behind me bumps her backpack against my shoulders over and over, while another woman, seated, presses the spine of a hardcover book directly into my hip—but no one’s facing each other, inches apart.

No one is looking at each other like Marco’s looking at me.

Or like how I’m looking back.

His eyes dance with amusement as he takes each lurch and bump of the subway as an opportunity to graze his lips, just barely, over my cheekbones. Underneath the loose cotton of his T-shirt, I can feel his heart beating as fast as mine.

“Claiming your territory?” I quip in a whisper when the subway makes a sharp turn and his fingers flex and tighten around the curve of my ass.

He makes a hum in the back of his throat, bobbing his lips down to my ear. “I don’t care if people know you’re mine. I know you’re mine.”