Page 109 of What We Bury

She laughs. Bright, raw-edged. I tuck it away like a jewel.

“Thank god I told that squirrel union rep to fuck off,” she says, picking up her wine.

I lean back, putting comfortable distance between us, like I’ve done this a hundred times and will do it a hundred more. The trick is to act like there are no stakes, so she doesn’t see how high they are. So she doesn’t see how my heart goes ballistic every time she looks at me.

“Your turn,” I say. “What’s your deal? Why does almost being murdered only rate a four on your personal panic index?”

She twirls more pasta, eyes on the plate. “I think my panic meter got a little recalibrated after I killed a man on a beach.”

Fair.

I lift my glass. “To personal growth.”

She clinks hers against mine with a snort.

“What were you like before?” I ask. “Before beach homicide and your parade of emotionally unavailable weirdos.”

She lets out a breath. “Quieter. Smaller.”

“Hard to imagine.”

“It shouldn’t be. I worked. I came home. I watched trash TV with Amy. I kept my head down.”

“And now?”

She looks down into her wine. “Now I think about things I never used to think about.”

“Like crime?”

“Sex.”

I nearly inhale a noodle.

It lodges halfway down wrong and I cough so hard I have to set my fork down and thump my chest. Sage watches me with flat amusement over her glass.

“Did I break you?”

“No.” I point at her while I wheeze. “You just—fuck—went zero to sixty with no indicator.”

“You asked.”

Once my airway stops trying to kill me, I retrieve my fork and give her a deeply offended look. “I did. And I love that for us. Continue.”

Color rises along her cheekbones, but she doesn’t retreat. Interesting. Our girl’s learning how to stand in the discomfort instead of backpedaling out of it. That matters.

“I just—” She twists her wineglass stem so tightly I wonder if it’s offended her personally. “I spent a long time not being in my body. Or only being in it enough to get through the day. And now it’s like every nerve ending woke up pissed off.”

My insides still. I keep my face in the light, teasing register. Inside, everything I am is tuned directly to her.

“Pissed off horny?” I ask.

Her laugh is mortified and helpless all at once. “Is that a medical term?”

“In some circles.”

She drops her face into a hand for half a second, smiling into her palm, then looks back at me. “Oh my god. I need to change the subject.”

“You don’t get to open that door and gently close it in my face like we’re civilized people.”