He scoffs. “You’re not serious.”
“I’ve done more unpleasant things for less of a reward. Remember Blake?”
He considers for a moment. “Okay, Nora. You do everything on that list, and the apartment is yours.”
“Indefinitely?” I clarify. “You sublet it to them for as long as they want, and find somewhere else to live when you go back?”
He gives a kind of growly snort. “Sure,” he says, “but it’s not going to happen.”
“Are you in your right mind right now?” I say. “Because if we shake on this, it is happening.”
His gaze holds mine and he reaches across the table. When I take his hand, the friction feels like it could light a fire. A shiver races up between my shoulder blades.
I only remember to let go of his hand because, at that moment, the salad and cacio e pepe show up in a cloud of the most heavenly scent imaginable, carried by the bowl-cut server, and Charlie and I startle apart like we just got caught in flagrante on the table.
After that, we waste no time with small talk, instead shoveling handmade pasta into our mouths for ten minutes straight.
By the time we finish, most of the two-top tables have been dragged together for larger groups, their chairs rearranged so parties can combine, the laughter swelling to overtake the soft Italian music and clink of wineglasses, the smell of bread and buttery sauces denser than ever.
“I wonder where Blake is now,” I say. “I hope he found happiness with that minuscule hostess.”
“I hope he’s been mistaken for a wanted criminal and picked up by the FBI,” Charlie says.
“He’ll be released in forty-eight hours,” I add. “But until then, he will not have a great time.” Charlie outright smiles, and I add, “I just hope his interrogator isn’t as tall as me. That’s a bridge too far.”
“I think you should know something.” Charlie’s voice fades to a rasp as he leans across the table, goose bumps racing up my legs as his calf brushes mine.
I scoot forward too, our knees fitting together under us, like interlocking fingers this time: his, mine, his, mine.
He whispers, “You’re not that tall.”
I whisper back, “I’m as tall as you.”
“I’m not that tall,” he says.
What my body hears is, Let’s make out.
“Yes, but for men,” I say, “there’s no such thing as too tall.”
He holds my gaze far too seriously for this very unserious conversation. My skin buzzes, like my blood is made of iron fillings and his eyes are magnets sweeping over them.
“There isn’t for women either. There’s just tall women,” he says, “and the men too insecure to date them.”
15
WE AMBLE DOWN the dark road in near silence, but the air hums with an electric charge between us.
“You don’t have to walk me all the way to the cottage,” I finally say.
“It’s on my way,” Charlie says.
I cast him a disbelieving look.
His head tilts, streetlight lancing his face. I’m not sure anyone on the planet has nicer eyebrows than this man. Of course, I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed a man’s eyebrows before, so it might just be that my general under-stimulation during publishing’s slow season has forced me to find new interests. “Fine,” he relents. “It’s not far out of my way.”
At the edge of town, the sidewalk gives way to a grassy shoulder, but tonight I’m wearing sensible shoes. On our right, a narrow footpath winds into the foliage. “What’s through there?”
“Woods,” he says.
“I got that much,” I say. “Where does it go?”
He runs a hand over his face. “To the cottage.”
“Wait, like a shortcut?”
“More or less.”
“Is there a reason we’re not taking it?”
He arches a brow. “I didn’t take you for the hiking-in-the-dead-of-night type?”
I push past him.
“Stephens,” he says. “You don’t have to prove anything.” His faintly spicy scent catches up to me before he does, so familiar and yet surprising, notes of cinnamon and orange that are much stronger on him than they are on me. “Let’s just go back and follow the road.” Overhead, an owl hoots, and he ducks his head and throws his arms over it protectively.
“Wait.” I cut him a glance, stop. “Are you . . . afraid of the dark?”
“Of course not,” he growls, starting down the path again. “I’m just surprised how far you’re taking this small-town-transformation thing. And just so you know, those bangs do not make you more approachable. You just look like a hot assassin in an expensive wig.”