“You’re pretty.”
I rolled my eyes, and not just because right now, with mascara smeared under my eyes and my nose red from crying, I knew I was about as far from pretty as I could get. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You know exactly what.”
“It’s not an offensive thing to say.”
“No, it’s not offensive. It’s just . . .” Something about his disoriented state made me feel more open, too, like in the little bubble of tonight, I could say things I wouldn’t otherwise say. “You realize there’s no reason for you to say stuff like that, right? I get your schtick.”
His face screwed up in confusion. “What’s schtick?”
“It means I know very well that I’m just a prize to everybody in this game, and you’re no different. So yeah, I know you flirt with me for the same reason every Circle family we meet wines and dines me. And it’s not going to work. So . . . stop it.” I felt myself flush.
There was a long beat of silence. His head was clean enough, and I held his hair up and pulled the drain plug.
“I don’t think you know anything,” he mumbled, letting his eyes close again as I turned on the tap and ran warm water over his head. “You always think you’re right. But you’re not. You are not always right.”
My heart gave a strangled twist. We were quiet for a second.
“You know,” he said, “when I first met you . . .” He opened one eye, and the twist spread to my stomach as I remembered Jack, on the Dauphins’ balcony, admitting that he liked me as much as I liked him, all along. It started just like this. Don’t say it, my mind whispered. I’m not sure I can handle this. Don’t—
“When I first met you,” Stellan said again, sleepily, “I thought you were an idiot.”
His eyes slipped back closed, and the breath whooshed out of my lungs.
“Who gets on a plane with a stranger who just pulled a knife on her?” he said. “What is wrong with you? I could have been a serial killer.”
I half sniffed, half laughed, because he was right. He let me move his head back and forth under the faucet stream.
“But that stupid, naive girl I thought you were would have gotten herself killed off a long time ago,” he finally said, his voice fading. “Or at least she would have screamed and run the other way. You’re not that much of an idiot after all.”
I paused, surprised, and turned off the tap. It took me a second to look back down at him, and when I did, he’d fallen asleep.
I let him sleep for a second while I got the first-aid kit from the cabinet. I couldn’t figure out a good way to keep a bandage on his head, so I just sprayed some antibacterial stuff on the wound and nudged him with my knee. He blinked, looking around like he’d not only forgotten the conversation we’d just been having, but like he’d forgotten where he was, too.
“Now we figure out how to keep you awake for a few more hours,” I said wearily, handing him a towel for his head.
He made a face, but followed me into our suite, where Jack was sleeping soundly on the far side of the bed, a pillow pulled over his head. I planted myself in the middle again, and Stellan climbed in next to me. I watched Jack’s back rise and fall with his breath. As I watched, he twitched, mumbling something in his sleep. I put a hand on his shoulder and he relaxed, and we sat that way, swaying with the train, while Stellan flipped channels until he found what looked like Family Feud in French. We turned the sound on to just a whisper, and over the bump and rattle of the tracks, Stellan murmured translations of the winning answers to favorite snacks for a football match and vacation spots for retirees, and the fact that 53 percent of participants said French women started to dye their hair at age forty . . .
? ? ?
I woke up slowly, and immediately wanted to go back to sleep. I was absurdly cozy, pressed against a warm, broad chest, and the shaft of light when I half opened one eye told me it was still early. For the first time in a long time, though, I actually felt rested. I started to shift to look at my watch, but the arms around me pulled me back in tight. “Mmm, no,” he protested sleepily in my ear. “Comfortable.” And it was; the kind of comfortable where you’d be happy to stay in that semiconscious state forever. I nuzzled back into his arms.
And then all of a sudden, I was fully awake. That was not the soft British accent I might expect to hear first thing in the morning. My eyes fluttered open. It definitely wasn’t Jack, because Jack was asleep facing me, our fingers inches away from touching, like we’d been holding hands and they’d come apart in the night.
Suddenly, everything from the day and night before came rushing back.
I bolted upright, blinking the sleep out of my eyes, my contacts sticky and dry. “You fell asleep,” I whispered to Stellan.