AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She reached inside. And pulled out a classic round-cut diamond solitaire necklace held in a near-invisible prong setting and suspended by a platinum filigree chain as delicate as a spider thread.
The gemstone seemed to catch the light of the entire penthouse and hold it in its living heart.
“The thing about natural diamonds is, they’re one of a kind,” Evan said. “Like a thumbprint. An iris.”
Joey turned away so he couldn’t see her face, but her elbow poked out as her hand rose to her cheeks once more.
“Remember what Jack used to say?” Evan asked.
Still facing away, she nodded. “‘A diamond’s just a lump of coal that knows how to deal with pressure.’”
“Down deep, just above the molten core. Temperatures around two thousand degrees Fahrenheit, pressure something like seven hundred thousand pounds per square inch. Enough to modify crystalline carbon at the atomic level. Enough to transform it into something pure.”
“Like your vodka.” She looked at him now, finally. She was more composed, but her cheeks were flushed and her expression showed that wide-open vulnerability it got when she was fully within herself. She spoke breathlessly. “Where’d it come from?”
“It belonged to a Persian monarch. It was given to me by an Iranian admiral I did a favor for once.”
“Really?”
“I’ll tell you the story one day.”
“No you won’t.”
She held it up, and it sparkled transcendentally, finding communion with her eyes. Her mouth was slightly ajar, showing that hair-thin gap in her front teeth.
Evan remembered Deborah’s talking about all the times she’d forgotten to pay attention to her son.Picking at his dirty fingernails. To watch him watching TV. That’s all heaven is. It was right there, every instant of my life before. And I couldn’t see it.
The diamond spun and spun before Joey’s face. Her mouth tugged to the side. “This better not be bugged, X!”
She gave her openmouthed laugh, graceful in its gracelessness, pure Joey and nothing else. Then she handed him the necklace and turned, lifting the hair from her nape so he could fasten the slender catch.
She turned back, cupping it in her palm beneath her chin. Then she opened her chili mac, dug in her plastic fork, and shoved in a bite. She spoke through a full mouth. “Better eat up so I can get out of your hair.”
“It’s pretty late,” Evan said. “Maybe you should crash here.”
“Me? And Dog?”
At his name Dog lifted his head from the cool concrete, furrowed his brow with momentary interest, then laid it back down with a jangle of his collar.
Evan said, “Why not.”
“Because if he starts howling, it’ll be the Castle HeightsNotHappy Hour.” Her eyes were smiling. “And because of, like, all those hard boundaries you’re always bragging about.”
She smiled privately and kept her eyes on the MRE. They finished eating together, basking in the most pleasant silence Evan could remember.
When they were done, he cleaned up and she went upstairs into the reading loft to settle in. There was a sofa up there and a small bathroom, with sheets and spare toiletries tucked into a cabinet. The lights clicked on above, casting a glow down through the twisting steps, shadowing the spiral pattern against the floor so it looked like the staircase was a beanpole climbing up from a whirlpool.
Dog raised his head to look wearily at Evan, weighing if it was worth getting up to be closer to his Human. Evan said, “Up to you, pal,” and Dog lowered his head once more with a clink of his tags.
A few moments later, they heard Doc Martens clanging down the stairs. Joey ran across the great room, a pillowcase flapping in her hand. “X! OMG! You boughtskull-and-crossbone sheets? That’sso cute.”
“It was the only pattern they had left.”
“Don’teven. There’s not a pattern in this whole condo. You’re, like, allergic to patterns—a patternless human.” She shook the incriminating pillowcase. “You hoped I’d come. You were hoping I’d come.”
“I like having backup gear,” he said. “That’s all.”
She was close to him, bouncing on the balls of her feet, the necklace glittering against her white-ribbed muscle shirt. She jokingly palm-slapped at him. He countered with an inside block to apencak silatstrike, but she caught him in a wrist lock and he let her force the elbow and spin him around.
