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“Are you?”
“I just told Gemma and Alisha off. Or, well,” he chuckles lightly, the sound incongruent, “I came in second.”
“What does that mean?”
“Rayelyn Boyle beat me to it.”
“Rayelyn?”
“She ripped Alisha and Gemma a few new holes. Didn’t make a difference, of course. Nothing you say to soulless Barbies ever does.”
“You mean nothing Rayelyn said made a difference.”
“No. I mean nothing anyone says makes a difference. But you have to say something, don’t you? Otherwise, they think it’s acceptable to treat people like shit. I thought I was doing the right thing by depriving them of attention. I was wrong.”
“They’ve always been like this.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it ten years ago.”
I snort. I can.
“Mallory,” he says, his fingers scraping along the dirt to find mine. I don’t pull away. Twining our fingers, his palm flattens against mine, the connection warming me. “I told Alisha and Gemma they were petty bitches who were embarrassing themselves with their childish putdowns.”
“You did?”
“Ask Fiona. She was there.”
“I don’t need corroborating witnesses, Will. I trust you. If you say you did it, I believe you.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you trust me?”
“Because–why wouldn’t I? You’ve never given me a reason to think you’re not trustworthy.”
“That’s your default? Assume trust until someone breaks it?”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“And you make life choices based on what feels right? Inside yourself, intrinsically?”
“We talked about this already,” I say with a long sigh. “I know, I know. I turned down Harvard.”
He squeezes my hand. “No. That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?” Turning toward him, I open my eyes. In shadow, his profile is a work of art, throat moving as he swallows. Greys and browns, black and the flash of light as doors to the building open and close, cars coming into and out of the parking lot, all mingle to make him look like an Escher etching, a Picasso, but 3D and with movement.
“You seem like the kind of woman who likes to take it slow. I’ve known for a while now that I wanted this,” he says, sitting up, hand still holding mine, waving at the ever-shrinking space between us, “and I knew you wanted it, too.”
“Then why not say that?” I sit up, too, unable to stop myself.
“I tried. Repeatedly,” he says pointedly. “You need a soft sell, though. Pinning you against the wall and kissing you madly next to the coffee machine didn’t seem like your style.”
“Is it yours?”
“With a woman I want? Who wants me, too? Sure.”
