Page 76 of The Pairing

“Is that it?” Blond Calum asks Ginger Calum.

Ginger folds his arms. “We promised that if we ever did it, we would do it together.”

“When we were fifteen, Calum! It didn’t mean anything!”

“It meant something to me!”

Theo presses her knuckles to her lips. The Calums share a long moment of intimate eye contact. I share a long moment of intimate eye contact with the branzino on the table, reflecting on the week I’ve had.

“I didn’t know it was that important to you,” Blond says softly. “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

Ginger says, “Well, it hurt my feelings.”

“I’m sorry, mate. I was just—I was caught up in the moment, I guess. I wasn’t thinking.”

“In Calum’s defense,” Theo chimes in, leaning forward. It seems like the phrasecaught up in the momentmay have activated something in her. “I think we all probably made some questionable decisions in Monaco.”

She looks directly at me. I clench my jaw.

“It was something in the air, wasn’t it?” Blond Calum says.

“Definitely,” Theo agrees. “I mean, Kitkissedme. Can you believe that?”

My heart drops.

“No!” Ginger Calum shouts, instantly lit up with laughter. “Naughty lad!”

Blond Calum jumps in too, and I order myself to laugh along and take my ribbing, but my sinuses are beginning to sizzle, which can only mean one thing. Theo is watching my face closely over her glass.

“Yes, very funny, what was I thinking,” I say, pushing my chair back. “Excuse me.”

I leave the terrace as quickly and discreetly as I can, praying nothing happens until I’m out of sight. Through the dining room, down the stairs, out to the street—I don’t stop until I’m on the gravel, where no one but an old man sitting by the road in a kitchen chair will see if my nose starts to bleed.

Most of the time I find it romantic and even somewhat sexy that, ever since that water taxi in Venice, my nose sometimes bleeds when I feel an especially powerful emotion. It’s like being the victim of a curse in a Greek tragedy or Satine inMoulin Rouge.But Theo isn’t stupid, and if this keeps happening, I’m going to give myself away even more than I already have.

I tip my head forward and lean against a garden wall, waiting for the feeling to subside. It works: When I swipe my thumb over my upper lip a few minutes later, it’s dry.

I release a sigh and contemplate calling Maxine, or even Paloma, just to tell someone what I can’t tell Theo.

There was a moment, a month after Theo and I settled into our apartment in Palm Springs, when things began to shift. I glanced up from my morning reading and I caught her staring at me with a private sort of tenderness in her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, I wondered if she loved me the way I loved her. If this was how she always looked at me when she didn’t think I could see.

For all my regret, I felt that bud of hope last night too. It was only a breath, a quiet swish in through her nose and then a softening of her mouth, as if she might have pulled me deeper if I hadn’t already been staggering away. But I’d be a fool to hold on to that after how she talked at the table just now, as if it was all ajoketo her, as if—

The door behind me flies open.

“Kit!”

Theo charges out into the street, hair wild and amber in the windy dusk.

Her boots pound against the stones, and my first thought is,good.Theo should always walk with heavy footsteps. She should leave deep tracks wherever she goes so everyone can know she was there, like a historical event. Archaeologists should put tape around her footprints and study them with brushes.

She draws close and demands, “What are you doing out here?”

“Nothing,” I tell her. “I just—I needed some air.”

“We have an outdoor table,” Theo points out.

“Different air.”

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