Page 68 of Knox Unleashed
Maren:Yes
A second message pops up.
Maren:I’m in the middle of something though.
I frown slightly, because I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that. Hoping that it just means she’s at work and may have to ignore me for a hot minute while she does something, I dial her number.
She answers after two rings. “Hey.”
There’s a faint scratching in the background, something rhythmic. Maybe I should have video called so I could see her face. Instead, I lean my head back and focus on how she looked the night I fucked her.
“Hey. What are you doing?”
“Painting. The roses you gave me, actually. I don’t usually do still life, but they’re too pretty not to.”
“They’re just grocery store flowers.”
“Pah,” Maren says. “They’re notjustanything. It’s the first time I’ve been bought roses. Well, any kind of flower, actually.”
When she tells me things like that, a piece of my heart hurts for her.
“Most people just put them in water; they don’t paint them.”
“Yeah, but they’ll last forever this way.”
Forever.
Usually, I’d run a mile to get away from that word. But hearing it from Maren’s lips, I’m not quite so scared of it.
A quiet laugh escapes as the tension from yesterday eases away from us. “I had every intention of coming to find you last night, before we met at the grocery store. I make a mean whiskey sour, hence the lemons. Was gonna come over and make one for you.”
“That would have been nice,” she says finally.
Relief moves through my chest, slow and steady. “Figured I owed you a date, and seeing I couldn’t exactly take you to a bar, I thought I’d bring the bar to you.”
“On any other day, that would have been really nice. I get why we have to behave like two people who can barely tolerate each other in public,” Maren continues. “I know that’s what everyone expects from us. But maybe we can adapt.”
“Adapt how?” I ask.
“Maybe we text the things that others can’t see us admitting. If we had each other’s numbers yesterday, this might have all gone different.”
“Being able to call you on your ride out of there would have helped, for sure.”
There’s another pause. “Well, now you can.”
I pick at a thread on the bedcover. “Want to check I’m fully understanding what you’re saying, Maren. Are you saying we try this again?”
She sighs. “I think I am.”
I pump my hand in the air, a silentfucking yes!
“I’m really fucking glad, sweetheart.”
“So am I.”
Another soft scratching comes through the phone. And I picture her, standing at her easel by a window. Sunlight coming off the water, the bouquet of flowers in some vase.
“Is the painting turning out okay?” I ask.
