Page 48 of Lady and the Butcher
I wanted to ooze through the floorboards. I wanted to jump over the wheel and swim to Fort Sumter. I wanted to rewind thirty seconds and also not change a single thing.
Atticus didn’t hurry. He rolled his shoulders, then stretched his arm casually across the back of the bench the way a man might after finishing a plate of oysters he’d opened himself. No shame. No apology. He looked at Stephen like they were meeting at a hardware store.
“Evening,” he said.
Alicia’s mouth did something I couldn’t name. Not a smile. Not shock. A private acknowledgment. “Hi,” she managed, voice smoother than mine would ever be again.
Stephen blinked. Twice. “Sim?”
I remembered how to breathe. Barely. “Hi.”
His focus cut to my face, searching for panic or duress or the magic words he could deploy to make a problem disappear. Hefound none. That, somehow, startled him more than anything else.
“Are you—” He didn’t finish the question because its end was an insult.Are you okay? Am I okay?I was soaked in okay. I was drenched in exactly-what-I-chose. It felt like sin to admit it in front of my little brother.
“I’m fine,” I said, too quickly, then steadier. “I’m good.”
Atticus didn’t touch me, but the heat of him at my side steadied the part of me that wanted to hide under the bench. He tipped his chin, the smallest nod toward Alicia that somehow read as respect and warning.
Alicia recovered quickly. Of course, she did. “You look beautiful,” she said to me, and made it sound like solidarity instead of judgment.
“Thank you,” I said, grateful enough to hug her.
Stephen dragged a hand down his jaw. “This is—wow. Okay.” His gaze bounced from the horse to the harness to anywhere but the place where his friend’s mouth had just been. “Are you two … what is this?”
“Tonight,” Atticus said.
I had to swallow a laugh. Alicia slid her hand along Stephen’s forearm, a small anchor. “We were just getting gelato,” she offered. “Across from the pineapple fountain. They do the pistachio with real nuts. Want to join us?”
The world split into two choices: flee or walk toward the people who loved me like I had nothing to hide. The thing inside me that had been hiding since the full moon lifted her head.
Atticus looked at me. Not to ask permission. To let me own the decision. Lady, without saying it.
I pulled my dress into order and nodded. “Gelato sounds perfect.”
Atticus tapped the driver’s boot with a folded bill that could have fed the horse for a month. “Wait here,” he said.
The driver had already decided he was blind.
We stepped down. The cobblestones were warm. Atticus didn’t take my hand. He walked close enough to qualify as a shadow.
We fell into step with Stephen and Alicia, the four of us moving toward the fountain where tourists took photos like it was a shrine. The pineapple threw light and water in overlapping circles. A violinist stationed nearby saw us coming and slid into something soft and expensive.
“New dress?” Alicia asked, making her voice glide over the absurdity of the scene.
“Today,” I said. “King Street. He picked it.”
She didn’t hide her interest when she glanced at Atticus, and I didn’t hate her for it. “He has taste.”
“I’ve noticed,” I said, which earned me a look from Stephen that saidplease stop putting mental images in my brain.
We reached the small stand that had sprung up under a palmetto, all gleaming silver tubs and chalkboard scribbles. Alicia ordered pistachio and blood orange. Stephen went for chocolate.
Atticus didn’t order. He handed Alicia his card, which she tried to refuse on principle and then accepted. He took nothing for himself and then, when my cup arrived, stole the first bite with a small, insolent dip of the spoon.
“You don’t—” I started.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I do now.”
