“Nothing consuming enough to keep my mind off the musty ham currently on the express train through my colon. Only bickering with you can do that.”
The man can’t take it anymore, and he leans across the aisle. “Sir. It’s as the lady said, this is the quiet car.”
He points to the sign above my head to punctuate his point.
I do my best to summon Charming Tom and paste a conciliatory smile on my face. “Sorry,” I mouth silently.
He nods stiffly, appeased.
I close my eyes and lean my head back, trying to tame my racing thoughts. Though they’re the only thing that’s racing. The train still hasn’t moved, though nobody’s bothered to explain why.
I try to focus my thoughts on the upcoming Christmas Eve, on my proposal. Just this morning, the script of how I was going to pop the question was perfectly clear in my head, but now I can’t seem to remember a single word of it.
I open my eyes again and look at Katherine. “Can I have another mint?”
This time it’s the lady in front of us who turns around, disapproving frown firmly in place, and lifts a finger to her lips, librarian style. “Shhhhhh!”
Katherine is smirking, clearly pleased not to be the object of society’s ire for once. She hands me the entire box of mints, and I try to tap a few into my hand.
They don’t come out, and I shake it harder, rattling all the mints, the noise earning me a new set of glares from my fellow passengers.
I give up on the mints and instead pull my bag out from under the seat in front of me. I reach inside, feeling around in the zipped interior pocket. I hope feeling the sturdy yet delicate ring box will center me. Focus me.
It doesn’t.
I flip the top open, careful not to let Katherine see the contents. The enormous diamond winks at me. That, too, fails to settle my nerves. I shut the box with a silent click, then fold over the flap of my messenger-style briefcase back into place.
I slide the buckle into the clasp, and it snaps with what I think is the tiniest of tiny clicks.
At least a half-dozen heads whip toward me, and there’s a chorus of irritated shhhhhs.
Katherine is watching this with an all-out grin on her face now, delighted at my atypical lack of popularity. “Actually,” she leans toward me. “Now that I think about it. You do smell like ham.”
She says this in her normal voice, not even an attempt at a whisper. But nobody on the damn train says a word.
I feel like I’m in an episode of The Twilight Zone where everyone has it out for me. Or one of those hidden-camera, practical-joke shows. Actually . . . I lean into the aisle and look for a camera toward the back, just in case.
My timing is horrendous, and instead of finding a hidden camera, I come face-to-face with a woman’s crotch as she makes her way down the aisle at the exact time I turn.
She makes a horrified noise, and I immediately apologize profusely. You can imagine how well that goes over with the crowd.
I turn back to Katherine, expecting to see her gloating. She’s asleep.
Nope. Can’t have that. Not letting her sleep is half the reason I got into this mess in the first place. I nudge her shoulder. Nothing. Setting a hand on her arm, I give her a little shake, and she waves me off.
“Katherine,” I whisper. “Wake up.”
“Go away,” she mutters in her usual voice, but again, nobody even looks at her, much less scolds her. Clearly, this train is operating in an alternate universe in which everything is backward.
I’m the likable one.
She’s . . . Katherine.
I am not enjoying this role reversal.
I give her cheek a tiny flick gentle enough not to hurt, sharp enough to have her eyes flying open in outrage.
“I know you’re tired,” I say because I feel exhausted myself. “But we’ve got a few more hours before you can go to sleep.”
“Right,” she says wearily, lifting a hand toward her head and flinching when her fingers brush over the spot that clearly still hurts.
“You can sleep soon,” I whisper, feeling an unavoidable surge of sympathy. “I promise.”
She makes a quiet grumbling sound but nods.
I close my eyes for a second, then give her a sheepish smile. “I don’t suppose it would be fair if I slept?”
She spares me only a brief, withering glare, but a moment later I hear a weird puffing noise and look over to see Katherine blowing up that stupid inflatable pillow from the airplane.
She hands it over with a smile. “Here. I’ll wake you when we get to our stop.”
“Thanks,” I say in genuine surprise, and I kid you not, everyone on the train turns to glare at me.
I shake my head in bemusement and tuck the pillow around my neck. In what universe does everyone seem to prefer spiky Katherine to likable Tom?
An even more vexing realization is quick to follow:
I like Katherine’s spikes.
A lot.
I always did.
TWENTY
KATHERINE
December 23, 9:39 p.m.
“Hey, Flo-Jo. You think you could slow down a bit?” I call to Tom, who is hurtling himself through the Buffalo train station at what feels like a near run.
He gives me an incredulous look over his shoulder. “Flo-Jo? Did you seriously just compare me to a female track star from the eighties? And I told you not to wear your stupid high heels for once.”
“Okay, you know stilettos are an essential part of my personal brand. And it’s not the Jimmy Choos making it hard to keep up with you so much as the concussion.”
Tom slows his pace immediately.
“Thank you,” I say, shoving away the guilt at my teeny-tiny fib. The headache isn’t all that bad right now. The blister on my heel, on the other hand . . .
He grunts in response to my gratitude.
I look up at him as I fall into step beside his more manageable pace. “I don’t know why you’re so grumpy. Those nice people on the train could just not have been any more pleasant.”
“You don’t know why I’m grumpy?” he asks as we descend an escalator to the platform where we’ll catch our connecting train. “Really?”
“Can you believe that man on the train recognized me from the news?” I say, smiling at the memory. “I told you that Jacobsen case would put me on the map. Do you remember when I told you that?”
“Yeah, Katherine,” Tom says, his tone sharp as we step off the escalator again. “I remember. I remember that we were at dinner at Boulud. I was trying to tell you that we hadn’t seen each other for more than five minutes in two weeks because you were always working, but couldn’t fit it in around your brush-with-fame story. When I finally did manage to tell you what I was feeling, you asked the server for a box of tissues. For me.”
My smile falls off my face. I’ve been in a surprisingly good mood given the day I’ve had, but it definitely falters as I hear Tom’s version of that long-ago night.
I don’t remember it quite like that, but I also can’t claim that he’s wrong.