Page 2 of The Woman at the Funeral

But it felt especially cruel, in their shared grief, to sit apart.

My gaze slid to the left, finding Matt’s widow sitting alone in the front pew.

Her head was ducked.

And I hated that I noticed how the light inside the church bounced off the colorful stained glass and danced on her dark strands—pulled tight into a low bun.

That was the kind of thing I had to work not to pay attention to when Matt was alive. And it was something I really needed not to notice now that he was dead.

Pining for your dead friend’s widow was fucking unhinged.

The ceremony still hadn’t started, so I made my way down the aisle toward Matt’s mom.

As soon as Ronny spotted me, her hands reached for mine, clutching a damp handkerchief between our skin.

Crouching down, I gave her hands a squeeze.

“I’m so sorry, Ronny,” I said, noting her swollen lids and red-stained cheeks. “He loved you so much.”

“He loved you too, Nico. His one true friend.”

“You know I’m here for you if you need anything.”

Her hands squeezed mine again before releasing me to cry quietly into her hands as I moved down the aisle, speaking to Matt’s father, brother, and aunts before making my way toward the side.

I meant to simply slip into a pew behind them.

I was closer to the Ferraro family than I was to Blair.

But I found myself making a big circle around the church, coming down the other side toward the front row.

Silently, I slid in next to Matt’s widow, being careful to leave several inches of space between us, knowing it was dangerous to touch her.

It was bad enough that I could smell that subtle chocolate scent that I knew came from her skin.“She rubs that chocolate lotion all over her. You can smell it best on her neck, behind her knees…”

I forced Matt’s words away, knowing the other places he mentioned. And really, really needing not to think about pressing my face into them, breathing in that scent I knew I’d find there.

Beside me, Blair’s already pin-straight posture went straighter as her head turned, not knowing who to expect to find there.

She didn’t have family or friends with her.

All she had was Matt.

And now she had nobody.

She looked the same as I pictured sometimes, still, at night in my dreams. She had a round face with porcelain-perfect skin, dark brows and lashes, pillowy lips, and the kind of brown eyes that held warmth instead of shadows.

She was breathtaking by anyone’s standards.

Even sitting there, face clean of makeup, in her black mourning dress, she made my chest ache.

Unlike Ronny, she wasn’t puffy and red-streaked.

But I could see tides of grief crashing behind those pretty eyes of hers.

She wasn’t like Matt and his family—loud, extroverted, tossing their opinions and feelings around like beads on Mardi Gras. Blair was more reserved, more private with her true feelings.

“Ever melt an ice princess, Nico?”Matt asked once.

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