“No,” she whispered. She cleared her throat and forced her voice to rise. “No, it wasn’t, but it’s just as well that our whatever-it-is ends now. Thank you for a lovely day, which got weird and unpleasant and then briefly lovely, and then I wrecked it again and where the hell are my shoes?”
He went to the living room and brought them to her without a word. Said nothing while she slipped them on, found her purse and slung it over one shoulder, made sure she had her phone. He just looked at her with that intense blue-eyed stare. Looked at her while he was standing there all brazenly gorgeous and lightly tanned and flat-stomached and big-dicked and a revelation in bed, that hour between the sheets had been the best sex of her life and if she kept thinking about it she’d go and do something really stupid like strip and spend the night and then possibly linger in the morning and maybe stay forever.
“I don’t need a ride,” she said before he could offer. If he was going to offer. “I’d like to— I’m going to take a cab.”
He nodded.
“Okay.” It was nice meeting you? Thanks for all your hard work? Sorry about my fucked-up family life? Sorry about yours? You have a lovely home and no matter what anyone says, you deserve a nice life? Nope. None of it would work, and almost all of it would make things worse. “See ya.” Really? That’s the platitude you went with?
“One thing I don’t understand.”
She turned back, almost relieved. It wasn’t over until she crossed the threshold.
“You indicated you’ve wanted me for a while.”
“Yes.” The minute I saw the socks. And the dimple.
“But not for a relationship.”
“Right.”
“And decided to have me regardless.”
She cringed internally. “Yes.”
“Despite knowing that you would make your feelings plain when we were finished.”
“Yes.”
“Cold.”
“Warned you.”
She left before he could see her tears. He didn’t demand she stay. Or call after her to come back. Or rush dramatically after her.
It wasn’t a movie. It was real life. Which was awful. And that was the point. Both their points.
FORTY-THREE
“Archer.”
“Nnnnnn.”
“Archer.”
“Pigeon ate my burger.”
“Archer!” This last was hissed right into his ear, which was a tactical error as Archer mistook her for a bug and swiped at her hard enough to make her ears throb.
“Friggin’ mosquitos . . . nuh?” He rubbed his eyes hard enough to make her own water with sympathy. “Cuz, whassup?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, already regretting the insane impulse that led her here. Fortunately, Leah was still deeply asleep. Loudly, deeply asleep. My God. She sounds like a blender wrapped in a towel trying to blend a brick.
“F’r what? Y’okay?” He was trying to prop himself up on his elbows, staring at her in the low light from the partially open bedroom doorway.
“I’m fine.” Lie. “I’m just really sorry for all those times I was mean to you and said being mind-blind was like being developmentally disabled and that not remembering your past lives was like flunking a standard IQ test.”
He gawped at her and rubbed his eyes again.
She rushed on. “I know we talked all that out before you brought Leah to visit, but I’m not just apologizing for that. I’m apologizing for waiting so long to apologize.”
“If this isn’t some bizarre dream I’m going to fart on your face.”
By now she was kneeling beside the bed. “It’s because of Leah that I was so mean. Wait, I said that wrong—it wasn’t Leah’s fault I was so horrible. I was horrible because I felt inadequate beside her and took it out on you.”
“I will fart. On your face.”
“Does that make sense? How it’s about Leah but not really?”
“Hell no it doesn’t make sense.”
“Listen, this all goes back to our childhood and I know that’s a cliché and maybe not worth waking you up for—”
“You might be onto something.”
“But I have to explain why I was such a miserable, hateful bitch before— Wait a sec, was there a pastry swan on that plate?” She hadn’t noticed the telltale empty dessert plate on the nightstand before, but now her eyes had adjusted well enough to see the crumbs.
“Yeah, there was, and it was delicious, and you can have the crumbs after you go away and let me go back to sleep.” He fussed with the blankets and glared at her. Beside him, Leah murmured something, then went back to gargling gravel or whatever the hell she was doing, my God, how did he ever get a wink of sleep?
“Jack made that for her?” How does she rate? she thought but didn’t say. Nothing against Leah, but the swans were special.
“I think your little brother is in love with my fiancée, which I assumed would be the most unsettling thought I’d have tonight.”
“I’m almost done. Please be patient with me just a bit longer.” She shook his shoulder a little for emphasis. “You know I’m a fan of hers. Lots of people are, the woman has groupies, for God’s sake.”
Archer nodded in the semidarkness. “You should see some of the stuff they send her. She has a fluoroscope at work.”
“That’s . . . sad, actually, but it doesn’t surprise me. And when I found out I was an Insighter, I just knew I was going to be able to fix everything for everybody. That’s what I told myself. So I pushed it and practiced my gift on everyone who would stand still and some people who wouldn’t. But I could never see your lives. And I just couldn’t face up to that. So I figured the problem had to be you.”
“Angela.” He fumbled for her hand and patted it, yawning. “There’s no need for this. I don’t know why you’re doing this to yourself at . . .” He looked at the clock and his grip tightened. “Two-thirty in the morning?”
“Shhhhh!”
“You shhhh! And Leah doesn’t sleep, she hibernates. Jesus Christ. Now? You need to do this now?”
“Need” was exactly the right word. Because this was about making amends, sure, but it was also about learning to live with the fallout from all her mistakes. Even when I apologize, I’m selfish. Was that funny? Sad? All of the above?
“No matter what I did, I was never more than a magician doing card tricks. But Leah was already making a name for herself. She could make people appear within other people. She helped them see the dead. I could never do it so well, and—and I took that out on you.
“It drove me nuts that I couldn’t see your other selves, it just reminded me of my own failings, made my amateur status that much more obvious. And it drove me nuts that you couldn’t see them, either, couldn’t learn like the rest of us, couldn’t be enlightened like the rest of us, like I thought I was.” She could hear herself practically snarling and couldn’t stop. “I wouldn’t admit you were special, and you paid for it. When I apologized last time, I didn’t tell you the whole story. And I thought—I thought you deserved it. To know all of it.”
Silence.
“Do you promise you’re done?”
She thought it over, still kneeling beside the bed. “I . . . yes. That’s all of it.”
“Okay. My turn. Yeah, you were a jerkass, and not just when you were a kid. You were shitty to me when you were old enough to know better and that sucked, and you know it and I know it and everyone in the family knows it. But you made amends. We got right with each other. And then, mysteriously and to my intense aggravation, you were compelled to make amends again.”
Compelled. Yes. Exactly right.
“But, cuz, even if you hadn’t, your actions didn’t define me and your apologies didn’t, either. You were wrong about me. I was right about me, and that’s what mattered more to me back then. But you’re not the supervillain here. You’re the stubborn baseball manager who tells the hero—moi—that I’ll never make it in the big leagues. So I go out and work hard and make it to spite you and in the process end up rich and successful. You’re not Lex Luthor, you’re the B-villain who admits he was wrong at the end and respects the hell out of the hero. What you did, right or wrong, it helped make me a stronger person. Maybe even a better person.”