Do Your Worst(7)

Clark tried to do a good job anyway, to bring whatever semblance of process and procedure he could to the assignment. He hoped, however fruitlessly, to find something worth studying. Something he could publish, really, so that the only journal articles with his name on them weren’t the—now retracted—ones on Cádiz.

“Are you sure?” Riley looked down at the book again, flipping it open to run her fingers reverently across the pages.

“Absolutely.” Clark had finished it, and besides, he had plenty of others.

“Thank you.” She placed the book carefully in her lap, spreading out her napkin to protect it. “Curses are always hard to pin down in documentation. They’re difficult to visualize, and half the time, people who have experienced a curse are too afraid or ashamed to write anything down.”

Wow. She seemed to have spent a lot of time thinking about curses.

“You genuinely believe in this stuff, then? You’re not having me on?” Clark supposed it wasn’t that different from his mom getting into astrology a few years ago. Apparently, he was a textbook Capricorn. Whatever that meant. He certainly didn’t put any stock in pseudoscience, and Riley’s interest in the occult seemed to him a similarly harmless misconception.

“Oh, no, I’m a firm believer.” Riley carefully moved her water, making room as the waiter delivered their food—a pair of burgers and fries. “I guess you could say it’s sort of an obsession for my family. My grandmother wrote a whole book about it.”

“Really?” Despite himself, Clark was fascinated.

Though he didn’t ideologically align with the subject matter, he knew from colleagues how difficult it was to both write and publish a novel. And on such a polarizing topic. She must have been a very gifted storyteller indeed.

“That’s certainly impressive.”

“Gran was one of a kind.” Riley popped a fry in her mouth, then licked a trace of salt off her thumb.

Clark momentarily forgot how to chew.

“I spent every summer with her in the mountains—and she tried to teach me as much as she could about curses—but she passed when I was nine.” Her voice held traces of a sadness still raw after all these years, but her eyes remained clear. “I still wish almost every day that I could ask her a question, get her advice.”

“She sounds very special.” Clark certainly couldn’t begrudge Riley for holding on to stories shared by a beloved grandmother.

While they worked to clear their plates, the woman across from him continued to surprise him, to make him laugh. When he asked about her hometown, she described the place simply by enumerating its local culinary delicacies—soft pretzels, roast pork sandwiches with broccoli rabe, water ice (pronounced wooder ice, and which was neither water nor ice but instead some kind of in-between slush), and something called Tastykakes, which sounded truly appalling—and proudly talking about how her city’s sports fans were some of the most hated nationwide. To his surprise, she didn’t think much of cheesesteaks, though she insisted that if he did have one, he should go to Woodrow’s.

She asked him about himself too—about growing up in Manchester and how he’d chosen his specialization in archaeology and whether people had made a lot of Superman jokes when he was growing up, dark haired and square jawed (yes).

The night passed like a dream, everything but Riley blurred into soft focus, the pub emptying around them as visitors went home to prepare for the week ahead.

He paid, though she sincerely tried to get him to split it, suggesting they settle the matter in a thumb war, an offer he indulged purely for the chance to hold her hand. His life could do with an influx of whimsy.

By the time they stepped outside, the sky above was dark as pitch.

“Whoa,” Riley said, tipping her head back. “Get a load of those stars.”

Clark stopped and looked up too, at a scattering of constellations winking down at them. He alternated his gaze between Riley’s rapt face and the wonders above, his belly pleasantly full, crisp air against his hot cheeks.

“I’m really glad I met you tonight,” he said, as if her boldness had rubbed off on him during the meal. Clark didn’t believe in destiny or anything like that. His father had made sure he didn’t believe in anything but determination and grit. But even he could admit this felt—different.

She turned to him, the breeze tugging at the strands of her blond hair. “Do you wanna kiss me?”

Fuck. More than he wanted to keep breathing. But something held him back.

“It’s late,” he said, but didn’t move away.

“Kissing doesn’t have a curfew.” Her voice came out frayed at the edges.

“You don’t know me.” Clark stared at her bee-stung lips, for what felt like the thousandth time and the first, swallowing thickly. “I could be a terrible person.”

“Are you?”

“Sometimes,” he whispered without meaning to, and then, more dryly, “but in any case, you can’t take my word for it.”

This time when she laughed, Clark couldn’t resist. He reached up, slowly, carefully, to cup her jaw. And as her eyes fluttered closed, he closed the distance between them, bending to kiss her. Her lips were petal soft and so warm in contrast to the night air.

Riley dropped her hands to his shoulders and swayed forward, until they were pressed together from the knees up. Clark groaned into her mouth at the contact, the way her body molded to his, tugging her closer, moving one hand to her waist, the other sliding up to curl into her hair.