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“You married him,” Sean said, a dangerous edge to his voice, “but that d-doesn’t excuse his being a c-complete scumbag.”
“No.”
The snow fell harder, swooping crazily in the headlights. Virtually no one else was braving the roads. A wiser woman would drop this whole line of conversation with a Gallic shrug, feigning indifference to the subject of education, boredom with the topic of Levi Rider.
“I wanted to be a psych major,” she said. “Levi was a business major, and I read all his textbooks. I did a lot of the assignments for him, actually. He didn’t ask me to, but I liked the work, and it came in handy for running the office. And I’ve taken a couple of classes online since I moved back home. Just gen ed stuff, Intro to Humanities and Calculus. But it’s something.”
“Why psychology?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s stupid, I guess. I like people, is all.”
Sean’s hand found her shoulder. “I w-want you to listen to me, all right? Are you listening, C-clark?”
“Yes,” she said, nervous at how serious he’d become.
“I never wuh-want to hear you use the word ‘stupid’ t-to describe yourself again. You’re not stupid. You were sssmart as a whip in high school, and you still are. It doesn’t make any d-difference whether you have a diploma or whether you married ssome prick who didn’t deserve you. If you want a c-college degree, you can get one, but you don’t need a p-piece of paper from the University of Alaska to tell me or anyone else what you’re worth, and you already know more about human b-behavior than ninety-five percent of the p-people I’ve ever met.”
He slid his hand under her hair and cupped the nape of her neck. “So knock it off, okay? Quit running yourself d-down for what Levi did. Levi’s only real talent is manipulating p-people. It’s all he ever had going for him. That, and you. I bet you anything that asshole ffalls to p-pieces without you around to make him look good.”
It was the longest speech she’d ever heard him make.
It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her about Levi.
A gust of wind knocked the car a foot over the yellow line, and Sean put his hand on the wheel again. She turned her face toward the window and wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her hand, wishing she could go somewhere else to pull herself together. Wishing he didn’t keep finding ways to make her like him.
He was kind, was the thing. Intelligent, compassionate, and interesting.
Wounded and complicated and defensive.
He was so different from what she’d thought a week ago, and a hundred times more dangerous. Because she could fall for him. If she wasn’t careful, she would fall for him.
And then he’d leave.
When she thought she could talk again without sounding wobbly, she said, “Thanks.” She smiled, watery and weak, and added, “He’s actually living in Hollywood. His mom says he’s trying to write screenplays and hobnobbing with the rich and famous. He was supposed to be going to Tibet.”
“Tibet?”
“To find himself. He wrote me a note when he left that said he was b
uying a plane ticket to Tibet. I thought he was in Tibet until six months ago, or I would’ve divorced him sooner. Turns out he’s in L.A. Which is hilarious, because he always gave me a hard time for being addicted to celebrity gossip. He said the whole celebrity culture is plastic and toxic, and no sensible person would pay attention to it.”
“C-california can have him,” Sean said. “Little shit p-probably fits right in in L.A.”
“Didn’t you like it there?”
“I live in Ssilicon Valley, honey. Northern C-california is a different universe from L.A.”
“Right.”
“You’ve never been to C-california?”
“No.”
“It’s different than here. I remember when I first moved out to Berkeley, n-nothing felt real. Like the grass was the wrong shade of green, and the light was too b-bright and juh-just off, you know? But I g-got used to it. The weather’s b-better. I have a nice p-place. Friends. My c-company.”
“So what are you doing in Camelot?”
The silence that spun out between them lasted a long time, maybe thirty seconds, but she waited patiently. It wasn’t a silence she could fill, because she honestly had no idea what he was going to answer, or if he would give her an answer at all.
