Page 46 of Better Hate than Never

I told the same lie to Toni and Sula, a little disconcerted by how readily I’ve deceived people since I came home, knowing it’s something I’ll have to sit with at some point and face. The reasons I tell my little white lies, the choices I make to stay separate, the roots I refuse to let sink deep.

But not tonight. Tonight, my belly full of the quiche and doughnuts I snacked on all day, my face buried in the luscious perfume of flowers, I’m letting myself bask in a sliver of joy.

That is, until I see someone leaning against the streetlamp a block away, hands in his pockets.

He tips his head back, scrapes a hand through his hair, exposing the line of his throat, a thick Adam’s apple kissed by the sunset’s glow.

I stare as a bolt of awareness races down my spine. There’s something so familiar about him. The way he scrubs at his scalp, then lets his hand fall. The way he lifts his wrist, examines his watch, and slides his thumb across its surface.

That’s what I recognize first. His hands.

Hands that pushed me on a swing when I was a scrawny girl who wanted to fly so high I could kick the clouds. Hands that dragged Puck, the family cat, out from under his front porch’s crawl space where he’d hidden for shelter from a sudden, violent storm. Hands that scooped me out of a closet last night.

Christopher.

His eyes meet mine. “Katerina.”

Reflexively, I hug the flowers tighter to my chest. The card pokes my skin and my stomach drops as I remember the name written on it.

Katerina.

No. It couldn’t be him. He’d never.

Would he?

I shift the bouquet in my arms and lift my chin, forcing myselfto meet his eyes. Two glowing embers in the dying light, fringed with thick black lashes. Dark half-moon shadows beneath them. He looks exhausted.

Not that I care, of course.

“Christopher,” I finally manage to say. “What’re you doing here?”

He pushes off the streetlamp post and strolls my way, so intensely...there. Solid and sure, unmoved by the wind tugging his wool coat, whipping back his hair. Sunset gilds his profile and, when he faces me fully, lights up his amber eyes as it spills, burnished bronze down his body.

My breath is doing funny things, turning short and tight in my chest. I feel the danger, the draw of leaning too close to a roaring fire after a long, frigid day.

He’s so near now, I catch a wisp of his spicy smoke scent on the wind, see his chest rise and fall.

Snapping me from my reverie, he says dryly, “Apparently you’re ‘staying at the pub for dinner.’ ”

I arch an eyebrow. “Are youfollowingme?”

He arches an eyebrow back. “I asked relevant parties where I could find you after work. That was the answer I was given.”

“You didn’t askme.”

“I don’t have your number, Kate. You never gave it to me.”

My stomach knots. “You never asked.”

His eyes hold mine as he says quietly, “Fair point.”

Suddenly, I am desperate to go.

I don’t want to look at him glowing in the sunset like he was made for light to love every angle of his face, every contour and powerful line of his body. And Ireallydon’t want to think about why he’s here, the ways I might have humiliated myself in front of him last night when I was drunk as a skunk and half-awake. I want to move on. I want to walk past him and just keep walking.

“Well,” I say, falsely bright, “I’ll just be on my way.”

I start past him, when his hand darts out and clasps my elbow, bringing me to a stop.

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