"Thank you."
"I'm not giving a compliment. I'm stating a fact."
A laugh escapes me before I can catch it. His eyes track the sound. Drop to my mouth for a half second. Come back up.
"Your father doing better?" he asks.
"Yeah. Nerve damage from the port is slow to heal, but the scans are clean. He's making one-armed pancakes and doing crosswords."
"Sounds like Ray."
"You remember my dad."
"I ate dinner at your house twice a week for three years when Ben and I were in high school. Your dad taught me to change oil. Your mom—" He stops. Something crosses his face, a softness he locks down fast. "She used to save me a plate on Thursdays because she knew I wouldn't eat if nobody put food in front of me."
My mother died when I was twenty-three. Car accident on the pass. Reid sent flowers from wherever he was deployed, no return address, just a card that said "I'm sorry, Mira" in blocky handwriting. I kept the card. It's in a box in my closet between my nursing school diploma and a photo of him from Ben's high school graduation that I stole and never returned.
"She liked you," I say.
"She liked feeding people."
"She liked you. She told me once she thought you'd turn out all right if somebody fed you often enough."
That almost-smile again. Faint. Gone before it fully forms. But it's there, and it's aimed at me, and my heart rate climbs ten beats because Reid Holloway smiling at me, even almost, even barely, is a narcotic I've been chasing since I was old enough to know what wanting meant.
Under the table, my knee brushes his. Not an accident. A test.
He goes still. Every muscle, locked. But he doesn't pull away. His thigh is warm against mine through denim, and the contact sends a current up my leg that settles low in my belly.
"Ben's phone call is taking a while," he says.
"Ben doesn't get phone calls. His whole world is in this town."
"So he left us alone on purpose."
"My brother isn't subtle."
"No." Reid's hand is flat on the table, three inches from mine. "He isn't."
His pinky shifts. One fraction of an inch. Toward me.
I don't move my hand. Don't breathe. Don't do anything that might spook a man who spent twenty years in combat zones and still flinches when someone touches him without warning.
His finger brushes mine. Light. Barely there. The rough edge of his knuckle against the side of my hand, and every nerve ending from my wrist to my shoulder lights up.
Then he pulls back. Picks up his water glass. Drinks.
"I should go," he says.
"Okay." My voice is even. Miracle. "Drive safe."
He stands. His chair scrapes against the tile. At the doorway, he pauses without turning around.
"Wednesday. You said I was done looking past you."
"I did."
"You were right." He still doesn't turn. "Goodnight, Mira."
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