Page 64 of College Town

His heart hitches in his chest, and he slaps it back down. Mentally. He can’t do anything about the lurch and drag of his pulse, but he tells himself to pull it together. “He told you that? Out loud?”

She frowns. “Well, no, but–”

He stays her with a lifted hand – the one she was touching, so her fingers slide away. A small mercy. “Listen, Natalia. You seem great. Honestly. And I’m sure you have the best of intentions, but–”

Her smile turns rueful. “You don’t believe me.”

“It’s not that.” He doesn’t believe her, but it’s less the idea that she’s lying and more that he can’t allow himself to trust Tommy. “But I don’t need you to try to matchmake us back together or something. That picture” – he gestures to her phone – “was taken a long time ago. A lot’s changed since then, for both of us.”

For a moment, she looks unbearably sad. “He really does miss you.”

“I wish that was true.” And he does, he might want it more than anything. “But this whole situation is…deeply fucked up.”

She snorts.

“And I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t be here if dating me was an option for him.”

She says nothing, and that’s damning.

“Not to mention I’m not too keen to make a big love declaration to someone who’s basically holding me hostage.”

“You’re a guest,” she says.

“Sure. We’ll go with that.”

“And you do still love him, then?”

“No.”

Her gaze narrows, mouth scrunching to the side, but she doesn’t press. Instead, she stands, and smooths her clothes, and gives him an expectant look as she collects her phone. “Are you hungry?”

In a moment of cinematic timing, his stomach lets out an almighty gurgle.

She laughs. “Yes, then. Come. We’ll have dinner.”

What can he say? “Yes, ma’am.”

~*~

He puts on a pair of socks – thick and nubby and new straight out of the package – and follows her through the labyrinthine house to a gleaming, fully-equipped chef’s kitchen big enough to churn out meals at a Michelin-star rate that would put the finest dining rooms in NYC to shame. It’s empty, and though there’s doubtless a private chef on the payroll, Natalia seems perfectly at home rooting through the fridge and pulling out silver takeout containers.

They wind up microwaving an odd assortment of leftover pastas, soups, and some sort of honey-glazed grilled chicken dish that Lawson would sell his soul to have the recipe for. They eat sitting at stools at the long, marble-topped island, and as the warm food fills his belly, and Natalia keeps up a steady, aimless conversation about nothing in particular, he feels his shoulders drop and his nerves unwind.

Natalia’s good company when he’s not constantly running a loop ofTommy’s fiancée, Tommy’s fiancéethrough his head. Her English is, frankly, astounding for someone born outside of the US – she knows tons of idioms and slang words that Lawson himself isn’t always sure of, but she stumbles occasionally, and gives a roll of her wrist and a waggle of her fingers until he fills in the blank, and then she says, “Yes!” bright and happy, and is off to the races again. It works for them.

“…and she was ahorriblewoman,” Natalia says, emphasizing her point with a stab of her breadstick through the air. “Just awful. Her face was always like this.” She scrunches her own up until Lawson laughs. They’re having wine, a fruity Cab Sav that shouldn’t work with the chicken but does, and he reaches for his glass, pleasantly warm all over. “And so I did it back to her.”

“No,” he says, grinning.

“I did! And she got so confused. She said, ‘Why are you making that face at me?’ And I said, ‘What face? I’m only pretending to be your mirror.’” When Natalia dissolves into flushed giggles, Lawson follows suit.

Across the room, someone clears his throat.

They both startle, harder than they should have. For his own part, Lawson forgot where he was and under what circumstances. He’s had more wine than he realized; when he turns his head, the light smudges yellow, and the room sways, and he sets his glass back down without having taken a sip.

Natalia recovers first. “There you are,” she says, warmly, “I wondered if you would join us.”

A shadow detaches itself from the doorjamb and floats forward into the light, resolving beneath the pendant lamps into Tommy.Tommy, and not an axe murderer, so there’s no explanation for the way Lawson’s heart surges and trips all over himself; for the way his skin contracts painfully and he sits frozen like a raccoon caught raiding a trashcan. An honest to God bolt of fear pierces him, and he sets his fork down, too. Pushes his plate away for good measure.

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