Page 47 of A Conflict of Interest

The apartment was so nostalgic, all its soft colors giving it a sweet, dreamy feel, and I did my best to stay cool as I sat on her couch with one leg slung up over the other, making sure I didn’toutwardly freak out about Kelcey sitting next to me with the charcuterie board on the table in front of us. I hung onto every word Kelcey said as she gushed on about all the changes in the office since my sister had taken over with Lucy, and then—onto talking about events with her family, picking up conversations she’d had with me as Nic as if we’d never stopped talking there.

We didn’t actually end up talking about those serious topics she wanted to get to until late, because once we finished the charcuterie board over the course of an hour and a half, she leaned back in the couch, looking out at where fat snowflakes drifted down in the warm light of sunset outside, and she said, “God, it’s already almost nighttime. I need to get Christmas shopping… I don’t know what to get my dad, so I’ve been putting it off.”

“Drake Lee just released another novel. I think the local shop has a special-edition cover.”

She shot me a funny look. “What? When did I even mention him reading those?”

“Ah.” I shouldn’t have said anything. I was getting outed as having stared at her pictures. I looked away. “It’s his bookshelf that was in the background of that picture you sent, right? I noticed he had a whole collection…”

“I thought you weren’t a big reader.”

I was not telling her I’d memorized every detail of every picture she was in before I deleted them. I’d die. Maybe because she’d kill me for being a creeper. “I just notice stuff sometimes…”

She leaned in closer, a smile breaking out over her features, and I turned away. Didn’t stop her from saying, “Oh my god, you’re blushing.Veronica.What’s your dark secret?”

“I torture people in evil rituals in the woods.”

“That sounds like way too much work. You’d never be caught dead doing that.”

“Okay, true, yeah.”

“Tell me,” she insisted, giving my shoulder a shake, and I laughed, trying to brush it off as casual even though my heart ached so badly I wanted to die at the way she moved in closer to me and put her hands on me as effortlessly as she always had. “Tell me or I’m entering my rage state!”

“Christmas tree’s all the way on the other side of the room. I’m safe here.”

“I’ll throw it at you,” she laughed. “Tell me.Pretty pretty please?”

I rubbed my temple. “I just… stared a lot… at your pictures.”

“And noticed details down to what authors my dad keeps a lot of on his shelf, enough to where you know when there’s a new one released?”

I felt my face prickle. “Oh my god. Okay, fine, you asked for it. I… didn’t want to delete the photos I had of you… so—you know. I just… paid a lot of attention to what was in them before I did delete them.”

“You didn’t want to…” Her voice was a little breathless, dazed. “Why were you deleting them?”

“What—” I whirled on her, my face hot. “You told me to! I mean—rightfully so, I was a creep—when you found out who I was and called me—you told me to delete the photos I had of you,” I said, and I felt like I could die with awkward awareness of how shaky my voice was.

She stared at me for a long time, her brows knotted, before she said, “Oh, god, Veronica, that was just… heat of the moment. I’d forgotten I’d even said that. And I just meant the ones I’d sent you as Nic, and…” She clasped her hands in her waist. “Did you delete every photo you’ve had of me?”

“What? Oh, I, uh,” I said, trying my best to sound casual even though my voice came out sounding like I was about tobreak down crying. “That? Well, I just, uh… I mean, sure, yeah. I mean, you say jump, I say how high.”

Her expression softened until it made me feel like I was dying. “Veronica, you’re… crying.”

“Ah, yeah—” I wiped my eyes. Oh, I was fully crying. Oh, god, that was embarrassing. “I got rosemary in my eye. And in the other one too.”

“Oh, no. You didn’t have to do that. I just—I mean, I don’t mind you having—oh, god, you can’t cry, you’ll make me cry,” she said, fully already crying, and she fell onto me in a hug that took my breath away—her frame pressed up against me, so soft and sweet, precious and perfect, it made my chest ache so badlywantingher in ways I could never tell her, and I didn’t know what I was allowed to do right now, but… my hands found her back.

“Hey… it’s okay. I just wanted to respect your wishes…”

“Is there a way to restore them?”

“I-I don’t know…”

She cried on my shoulder—actually fully, openly cried, clutching fistfuls of my shirt and burying her face against me crying, and I was starting to get the idea this wasn’t about pictures at all. I squeezed her, holding her tight against me, and I told myself a million timesI’m doing this to be supportive, I’m doing this to be supportive,and absolutely demanded my body not have any reactions to this. It partially worked. This was not the time to have my heart beat faster and my hands quiver at the nervous sensation of holding Kelcey Huntington this way.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice thick and shaky. “It’s just really sad… I hate the thought of losing keepsakes, memories…”

“It’s all right,” I said softly, stroking a hand down her back in that soft, gentle way I knew reassured her when she was emotionally overwhelmed. “I still have the memories themselves. And… and there’s…” I trailed off, wincing at howpresumptuous I was with that thought, hoping Kelcey was too overwhelmed to really pick up on it, but she pulled back from the embrace to look at me.

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