Page 64 of Cherry Auction

He pushes a button, and a trashcan extends from a cabinet in the island. I toss the shell.

“Five more. I’ll get to chopping the peppers.”

I nod happily. And, wanting to keep to lighter things, I decide not to prod at my past anymore. “How old were you and Moira when you came to the states? Other than sometimes, you barely have an accent.”

“Seventeen.”

I curl into myself. Right. Because of what me and my father did to them. Making them leave their country.

He looks back at me. “But I’m not done telling you about us. It’s alright, love. I’ll skip around the bad parts. I know you always wanted to leave the movies before they got to the sad bits.”

I freeze where I’m about to crack another egg and look over at him where he’s brought peppers and onions from the fridge to chop beside me. “I still do that!”

He smiles a little, and it looks so foreign, it transforms his whole face. For just a second, Donny’s back. He’s so serious all the time, he usually seems a decade older than twenty-six.

“Every afternoon you and me would grab some food and head over to the Green.” He looks up from chopping, crystal blue eyes intense on me. “You’d feed the ducks your leftover bread, chattering on and on.” He smiles and it lightens his whole face. “I’d just stare at you, mesmerized that a woman like you’d ever be interested in a lad like me.”

He looks back down and starts chopping again. Meanwhile my stomach’s dropped out from underneath me. I can’t imagine the two of us ever like that.

Finally I drag my eyes away from him and crack another couple eggs. “Of course I’d be interested in you,” I murmur. “You’re gorgeous and smart and really kind…” I shoot him a shit-eating grin, “at least when you want to be.”

His eyes come back to mine, and he smiles again, this time with a wicked edge that makes my stomach swoop in a different way. And I can’t decide if I like that smile best or the gentle one, and then decide I like them both best.

“What did I chatter about? Or was it just background noise?” I feel my cheeks heat, eyes dropping. Obviously he’s not going to remember after all these years.

He laughs, de-seeding the peppers with efficient, expert hands. “What didn’t you chatter about? The tree you thought was shaped like a dinosaur. The woman at the market arguing with her daughter. You were always listening in on other people’s conversations. You called it people-watching. You said the whole world was your experiment, and you were a social scientist, watching on. You wanted to go to college, but your dadnever stayed in one place long enough.” He only grits his teeth a little at the mention of my father before going on. “We said we’d use the money to send you to college when we ran off together.”

He looks up at me as he pulls green onions out of a bag. “I always wondered if you ever got to go. You know, with the money.”

“What money?”

He blinks for a second, then looks back down at his onions on the chopping block. “Right. You don’t remember. We were hacking back then. It’s what you recruited me for. Companies had shit security in the 2010s, so we’d backdoor our way in and skim off the top. Small enough amounts not to be noticed. Rounding errors.” He looks up at me. “And then, right before we were supposed to leave, big chunks.”

“Oh.” I’m a little speechless. Then I take another look around the huge, luxury mansion I’m standing in. “Is that what you still do?”

A laugh bursts from his chest, startling me into smiling and looking back at him. It’s always so unexpected when I get any expression of actual mirth from him.

“No,” he says, still looking amused, then a little less so when he goes on, “No, I work for the other guys now. Anti-spyware and anti-virus software. I learned my lesson after—” he cuts himself off, his eyes distant in that way he seems to get whenever he thinks of… ofhim. “Well, after.”

He drops the knife to the chopping block and shoves bothhis palms into his eye sockets, and again, I take a couple of steps back.

Is he disgusted by me now? Because he thought I was a beautiful woman who looked like Brittney Spears but in reality I was just a kid?

Or is he disgusted because I’m my father’s daughter?

Ridiculously, I want to shout,I’m a woman now.

Everything I learn about the past is so ugly. “I don’t want to know anymore. Don’t tell me anymore about what happened then.”

“Alright.” He drops his hands and turns back to the counter, whipping the eggs we dropped into the bowl furiously. His voice comes back deep and even. “I’ll just get you breakfast and then drop you at Moira’s.”

My mouth drops open and I felt like a horse has just kicked me in the chest.

That easy?

He’ll just discard me like that?

After everything he just put me through? And all he said we were to each other? Why the fuck doesheget to decide? Because he still thinks he’s Sir?

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