Page 9

For a moment, neither of us says anything. The train goes over again and the whole building hums with it. The mug buzzes against my fingers.

I’ve had all day to plan this, and I’ve planned it badly. In my head, I walked in, cool and composed, and asked him clever questions while he squirmed. Instead, I’ve given a stranger nosebleed advice, and now I’m sitting in a glorified closet drinking terrible coffee out of a novelty mug.

So I do the only thing I know how to do. I tell the truth.

“Why here?” I ask.

He doesn’t pretend not to understand. “So you’d see what you’re getting.”

“A gym?”

He snorts out a huff of what could be called laughter, I think.

“Me.” He nods back toward the door, toward the ring and the bags and the man counting money. “That’s what I do. That’s what people say about me. You’d have heard it anyway. I’d rather you saw it.”

“And see it, I did,” I say.

He waits.

“You knocked him down,” I say slowly, “and then you checked he was breathing, and you helped him up, and you patted him on the shoulder like you were sorry about it.”

His jaw does that thing again.

“I didn’t come here expecting you to be kind,” I say. “I’m not sure what to do with it.”

“I’m not kind.”

“You’ve got a purple horse on your wall.”

“That’s a dog.”

“It’s a horse,” I say. “It’s got a mane.”

He looks at the drawing over his shoulder for a long moment. “It’s a horse,” he admits. “My niece seems to think I’m a horse…”

I don’t mean to smile, but once it starts spreading over my face I can’t seem to stop it.

I put the mug down on the desk between us.

“I need to tell you some things,” I say. “Before you decide anything.”

His eyebrows lift. “Before I decide?”

“You’re allowed to say no too. Papa can’t make you. Especially not now.” I bite down on my bottom lip to stop the fresh wave of sadness from drowning me.

“I already said yes,” he says.

“To Papa.” I shrug. “Not to me. And nobody asked me. I was told by his lawyer.”

He folds his arms across his chest, which is a mistake on my part because I’d been very carefully not looking at his chest, and now it’s impossible not to.

“Go on,” he says.

I take a breath.

“People think I’m angry,” I tell him. “I’m not. My face just does this.” I gesture at it vaguely. “Milana calls it my resting murder face. Teachers used to send me to the principal for looking at them wrong. I’ve been asked to leave two bridal showers. It’s a whole thing.”

He’s listening. Properly. Not the way men usually listen to me, waiting for a gap they can fill.