“It sounds like that, doesn’t it?” She picked up my hand and brought it close to her face. Her brow puckered as she studied it. “You have the longest fingers I’ve ever seen. Did you know that? They’re like ten inches long each.”
“Maybe not quite that long.”
“No, I think they are. We should measure them.” She slid her fingertip along my index finger. “Do you have a ruler?”
“Can’t say I carry one on me.”
“That’s a shame.” She let out a huff. “Oh well. We’ll just have to agree they’re ten inches.”
“If that makes you happy.”
Her head shot up from my shoulder so fast her eyes went fuzzy and unfocused. “I’m not really mad at Jackson anymore. I was for a long time, but now…I’m just mad at myself. I can’t even remember why I loved him. He wasn’t who I was looking for. Not really.”
“Who were you looking for?”
Why’d I ask that? I didn’t want to know. The answer would never be what I wanted. Even if it was, even if, by some chance, she’d ever wanted me, she’d married someone else. Had built a life with someone else and cast me out of it.
That fact remained.
And yet…
I couldn’t stop being curious about her.
She wouldn’t leave my mind. My memories. She was entrenched in my past, stuck deep in my heart, woven into the core of what made me who I was. Impossible to shake off when she was a thousand miles away. Even worse when she was on the stool beside me, her small fingers wrapped around mine.
And she didn’t even know. Not any of it.
“Someone like my dad. I don’t mean that in a weird way—I mean the way he’d lay down his life for my mom.” She made a claw with her free hand, right over her heart. “A lot of people think he’s scary, but he’ssosoftwith her. Zane and I too. His love is a flannel blanket, and the way he cares for us is like Bubble Wrap. Jackson’s love was like…he stuck me in a too-big cardboard box, taped it up, and sent me off, hoping for the best. If things were smooth, I was fine, but ifanythingwent slightly off course, I was bouncing around, flipping upside down, ping-ponging off the sides with the tiniest layer of protection.”
I nodded. “He was careless.”
“Yes.” She slapped her hand down on the bar. “Yes. What I can’t figure out is why I thought that cardboard box would ever be enough.”
“Maybe it was—until it wasn’t.”
Her lashes brushed the apples of her cheeks as she blinked at me. Green neon reflected off the deep, shiny pools of her eyes. They were hazy but fathomless. And her sadness was there, right at the surface, diluted only by all the alcohol swimming in her blood.
“You’re so smart,” she said softly. Sadly. “I wish you hadn’t stopped speaking to me.”
“I didn’t stop on purpose. It wasn’t a decision I made. We just…burned out.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed. “I was swept up and didn’t see it coming. One day, you just weren’t there anymore.”
“Kinda how I felt about you, Zara. You were there, then you were gone.” With him. Always,alwayswith him.
“Then you hated me.”
“No.” I curled my fingers tighter around hers. “That isn’t true. I’ve never hated you. Not even for a second.”
Furious. Lost. Heartbroken. But hate?
Never.
Not Zara.
Her eyes snapped open. “Then why—”
Heavy arms fell across our shoulders, cutting off whatever she was going to say, and Henrik’s face appeared between us.