Page 63 of The System

“You can sit, or you can stand. You can even kneel, if you really want to, or lie down, if you need to, as long as you tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring me, Carina.”

“I like you,” Carina revealed. “I like you a lot, and I shouldn’t.”

Kieran stood there, in the middle of her living room, looking stunned, and she didn’t say anything.

“Yeah…” Carina decided to continue after a moment. “And I just spent half of my night convincing Kenna to leave your sister alone, which I shouldn’t have done because it works in my favor if she does that stupid interview, but Kenna agreed to back off for now, and–”

“Kenna backed off?”

“Yes. But that’s not what I really came here to talk to you about. I spent the other half of my night on a date with a perfectly intelligent, beautiful, kind woman who brought me to a coffee shop to listen to people perform their own songs and poems – which, I’ll admit, isn’t my dream date, but it was still romantic, and she was sweet – and I feel horrible because I was completely distracted the whole time and not thinking about her at all. At one point, she asked me if I liked one of the songs, and I just nodded, but that song could’ve been horrible or about something bad, and I never would’ve known because I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Why?”

“Kieran, you know why. I just told you. I like you.”

“I like you, too. You know that.”

“No, I mean that I like you. I feel like a teenager right now, but I like you as more than a friend. I’m interested in you. I am attracted to you. And I can’t be.”

“Oh,” Kieran let out and walked over to her sofa. “You mean you like me?” She sat down.

“Yes, I like you.” Carina let out a deep breath. “And I just needed you to know, I think, because, well, I feel like you’ve been completely honest with me so far, and you probably shouldn’t have even done that given the position I’m in.”

“I trust you,” Kieran replied.

Carina swallowed.

“I shouldn’t, but I do,” Kieran added and shrugged a shoulder. “I feel like you wouldn’t do anything to put me at risk or even to put Marin at risk, which I know sounds weird, but I’m not defining risk by putting in jail.”

Carina laughed a little and said, “If Marin gets convicted, it will be because I argued the case based on evidence in court.”

“I know,” Kieran replied. “And I like you, too, but–”

“Not like that. I know. I get it.”

“I just got divorced. Well, not just, but in a way, it still feels like that because Diego’s still been a part of my life up until recently, acting like we’re together.”

Carina tilted her head because that wasn’t the reason that she’d thought Kieran would give her for why they couldn’t try this. She’d expected her to first bring up the fact that she was a heterosexual woman who wasn’t attracted to other women.

“Plus, you’re, well, prosecuting my sister. I don’t–”

“Yeah,” she said, interrupting Kieran then because the next thing she’d say might be that she was straight, and for whatever reason, Carina felt that if Kieran didn’t say that out loud, it wasn’t the truth, and there might be a chance one day. “I just needed to tell you because if there was… something here… a chance for… more than that new sort-of-weird friendship, I’d have to recuse myself from the case.”

“You can do that?” Kieran asked.

“If I have a good reason, not just because I want to. My boss wouldn’t let me otherwise.”

“This is a good reason,” Kieran replied. “They could put someone else on the case.”

“This isn’t a good reason if nothing’s going to happen between us, Kieran. Besides, I think I might need to take some time with this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not spending time with you. Maybe we just cool the friend thing until after.”

“After the trial? Won’t that be months or a year or something from now?”

“We have the hearing the day after tomorrow to get some evidence admitted,” Carina said.

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