Her reply was unexpected.
“Sorry I saw the name. The old one. It’s not right, using it against you.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I know a bit about being stigmatized by your past.”
“That sounds like a story.” My hand rose, and I traced her chin with my thumb. “Tell me someday?”
Her mouth opened at the same time as the front door.
We stepped apart.
“Breakfast,” Ingrid called.
In the kitchen she parceled out coffee and bagels with a weird, seemingly genuine cheer. Few things put my misanthropist BFF into a good mood like other people’s misery.
When she pressed a paper cup into my palm, she said, “Hot, black, and bitter. That’s what you like now, right?”
I sputtered.
But Tamsin merely smiled and said, “His taste is improving.”
———
None of us had a car, and I needed time to think. So I rode with Tam on the bus back to her hotel. But even the caffeine couldn’t kick my mind out of zombie mode. You, I thought. You didn’t hurt me enough, did you? You came back for more.
Whatever those bastards wanted with me, they’d find more than they bargained for.
Sofie was long gone. Ren was here now, and he broke men for fun.
Tamsin and I sat side by side, staring at the city, the gunmetal lake sliding beneath a steel sky. The warmth between us knit our bodies together and I thought of how good it would feel to put my arm around her, how dangerous that desire. At her stop she didn’t move. Her head lay against the window, skylight starring her sooty lashes like bits of diamond forming in coal. I let her rest. Clouds swept in, then rain, clear buckshot bombarding the glass. Tam stirred and looked at me and neither of us spoke, but in her half sleep she touched my cheek, rubbed the stubble where she’d put her lips. Something in the center of my chest went soft.
“Tell me your story, Ms. Baylor.”
Drowsy smile. “You’ll think poorly of me, Mr. Grant.”
“Let’s make a deal. For every bad thing you’ve done, I’ll tell you something bad I’ve done.”
“You’ll get the better end of that deal.”
“I’m no angel.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
For the first time, she made me blush. “You must be very tired. That’s grade-F pickup artistry, Tam.”
“Why don’t we stop this senseless flirting,” she said, tipping her head toward mine, “and get to the bloody kissing.”
The gravity between our bodies pulled us closer. My skin felt magnetized, drawn. Craving connection. Touch, pressure, heat. I wanted my mouth on those thick, luscious lips. I wanted to start this thing and not be able to stop it.
Instead I leaned away. “I want to know who you are first.”
“Fear of intimacy.”
“Really? That’s like, item number one on my psych profile. You can dig deeper than that.”
“Know what item number one is on mine?”
“Bet I can guess.” I looked her over. “Fear of commitment.”
“Am I that transparent?”
I ticked off my fingers. “Expatriate. Not employed in your field of study. And you’re running from something.”
“You’ve read my file.”
“Actually, I haven’t. Ellis didn’t give me jack shit. I’m reading you.”
Tamsin propped herself on one elbow, amused. “Let’s dig deeper. Quid pro quo. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“I dropped out of college. High school, in America.”
“I lost a college scholarship. University, in England.”
We eyed each other.
“How’d you lose it?” she said.
“It was a girls’ basketball scholarship, and I stopped pretending to be a girl. Why’d you drop out?”
“Couldn’t live up to my sister.”
Rain pounded the glass, a hundred syncopated heartbeats.
“Round two,” Tam said. “I use men for money.”
“I use women for sex.”
Saying it aloud was a shock. I knew, obviously. Joked about it with Armin, other men. But admitting it to a woman I was pursuing was like shooting myself in the foot.
“Well,” Tamsin said, “aren’t we the pair of walking clichés.”
“This game is dangerous. Maybe we should stop.”
“It’s just getting interesting.” She laced her fingers over her ribs. “Round three. I let a man use me. Beat me. For years. Let him put me in hospital.”
It was as if some spell had fallen over us. My words came like an incantation. “I slept with a man who didn’t know that . . . that I was a guy inside. I led him on. Made him think I was a girl.”
“I ruined the man who hurt me.”
“I let a violent criminal walk free.”
“I’m a fugitive.”
Horrified, I whispered, “I’m a killer.”
She whispered back, “So am I.”
In the glass behind her the world was liquid chrome, her face the only color in it, flushed, that deep brown richening with red undertones. Her eyes were a little manic. No one sat near. No one could have heard. But it felt like our words blazed in the air, scarlet letters branding us.
Tamsin said, “I was wrong about you.”
“Wrong how?”