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Where did this boldness materialize from? Charles had time to think, before Oswin’s fingers circled around his wrists. His grip tightened until he was holding Charles’s arms firm by his sides, not painfully. Only then did he bring his face closer. It’s so I don’t strike him, Charles realized with remarkable clarity. Clever man.
When their lips touched, he thought momentarily that Oswin’s mustache tickled rather pleasantly, and then he didn’t have it in him to think at all.
“What brings you to New York?” Charles asked him now, surrounded by the jazz and fairies of West 3rd Street.
“It would be violating the Official Secrets Act if I were to tell you that,” said Dickie with a wry smile.
Charles scoffed. They had been through a war together, they each knew how the other tasted, any secret Dickie had to keep now felt absurd and insignificant. But that was the way of things for the likes of them. You gave yourself, and then you politely took it back, folded it up neatly, and hid it away again.
“What can you tell me?” he asked.
Dickie Oswin considered the question, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass, and said: “That I would be lying if I said I hadn’t hoped I might run into you.”
“A cute line,” said Charles once he had parsed the double negative. “How could you ever know I might be here?”
“Optimism,” said Dickie, with that smile again.
“You’re different from before,” said Charles. It was true; the proper Englishman he had met in Turkey had lost some of his impenetrable stiffness. He looked, Charles thought, like a man who had taken a long hot bath. “These last five years must have been interesting.”
Dickie placed some cash on the bar.
“Come for a walk with me,” he said, “and I’ll tell you all about it. Or what I can, at least.”
Charles almost said no. He tried to convince himself he had only come out tonight to drink watered-down bourbon and watch the boys go by, but he failed. And how often did the past reach out to you and beckon you back into its warm embrace?
“One moment,” he said. “I need to use the honeypot.”
Dickie smiled and rose from his stool when Charles did, like he might for a lady. It was not half as insulting a move as Charles might have thought.
“I’ll be right here,” Dickie said.
When Charles had pissed and washed his hands, he inspected his own reflection briefly. How different did he look now? How much had he changed since then? Five years might as well be an eternity, and he hadn’t been what you might call “dashing” to begin with. Too slight of build, an expansive forehead topped with what was clearly now a widow’s peak. He looked old, and suddenly he felt it, too. The weight of everything hidden and lost pulled on him now. No. He would go home. To the apartment. To Iris. No good could come from chasing a boy’s foolish dream.
He walked back out into the bar, and there Dickie was, standing, ready to leave. Charles walked over to him, breath faltering, grasping for the words to say this was not going to happen. Dickie picked up Charles’s coat from the barstool where he had left it, and held it out with both hands, again, like he might for a lady. Charles turned around, allowing Dickie to assist him in sliding his arms through the sleeves.
“What a gentleman,” he said. He had meant it to undercut the moment, but it came out almost a whisper. He was so aware of Dickie right behind him, hands heavy and warm on his shoulders, then his upper arms, then gliding down, grazing the backs of his hands, until their fingers were entangled.
“Come on then, darling,” Dickie whispered in his ear. Absurdly, a line from a film popped into Charles’s mind—something long and overwrought with Bette Davis.
No one ever called me darling before.
He followed Dickie out of the bar to the hotel where he was staying while he was in the city. It was not far, but they meandered and circled the streets of Greenwich Village to get there, arms crossed against the bracing autumn wind, that old craft seemingly rooted just as deeply in both of them. Finally, safe in the knowledge they were alone, Dickie led Charles in from the cold and locked the door behind them, one spy ready to share his secret with another.
Chapter 17
Simone looked as pristine as ever when she answered Patrick’s video call, makeup subtle but expensive, hair blown out and glossy in her sun-drenched office, like the beautiful but severe host of a morning show.
“Thanks for making time,” said Patrick. “How’s your better half?”
“Ugh.” Simone rolled her eyes. “You know I hate that expression. You can just say ‘girlfriend.’ ”
“I could,” Patrick said, “but in this case, she definitely is the better half.”
“You’ve got me there. I had to send her an edible arrangement to apologize for missing our first-month-of-living-together anniversary.”
“What did you go for?” Patrick asked. “Fruit? Chocolates? Those tiny muffins where you need to eat at least four to equal a normal-sized one?”
Simone looked at him like he was stupid. “Edibles,” she said.
