Page 202 of Sweet Ruin

“Obviously.”

“There are people twelve feet away.”

“Behind a wall.” His thumb moves once. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

“Good girl.”

“Don’t—” I laugh, mortified. “Don’t say that in a restaurant.”

“Then we’ll go someplace that isn’t a restaurant. Eventually.”

The dessert comes. Kane withdraws his hand as we eat. It’s silent, just the scrape of forks, but it’s the hottest silence I’ve ever been a part of. The air is thick enough to choke on.

Then, out of nowhere, something stupid occurs to me, but I feel bold enough to voice it aloud.

“Can I tell you something dumb?”

“Always.”

“I cannot remember last Valentine’s Day with Connor at all.” I shrug. “I can’t picture a restaurant or a card or even a fight. Nothing. Ten years of them and I can’t get one clear picture. But I can see the X I drew on this day in my dad’s planner, so I know what he was doing.”

Kane’s jaw grinds. He slowly returns his fork to the plate. “Then tell me what you want to keep from this one,” he says.

“From tonight?”

“Yes. Choose it now, while you’re still in it. Say it out loud and it’ll stick.”

I don’t have to hunt for my answer. It’s right there, already picked out.

“Your sleeves rolled up,” I say. “Past the elbow, with the tattoos showing, and your rings sitting next to my phone by the mixer.”

Kane looks at me, and for once, he isn’t smirking at all.

“Then that’s the memory we keep,” he says.

Downstairs, the cold is immediate and Stepan is at the curb with the door already open.

Kane stops with his hand on the frame.

“We have three options,” he says. “There’s a bar a few blocks from here that I own, where nobody will speak to you unless you want them to. There’s a rooftop that’s technically closed but won’t be for us. Or home.”

“Whose home?”

“You tell me.”

I stand there on Central Park South in my boots, as smitten Valentine’s Day couples walk arm in arm around us. I’m only half-pretending to think.

I know what I truly want.

I think I’ve known for a while now.

I lean past Kane and say, “Stepan? Sheepshead Bay, please. My house.”

My thoughts are all over the place as we drive there. For ten years, that address meant Connor’s schedule, Connor’s poker friends, Connor’s preferred side of the garage. I took the house in the settlement, but ownership has still felt administrative during these first few weeks.

Even though I changed the locks, painted the bedroom, and removed his furniture, his ghost still lingered.