I lean back, enough so I can look in his eyes. It doesn’t sound like a good thing to say, this I’m not always honest with you. But somehow, the way Reid says it—the letters take on a new meaning. As though if you drew them all out, you’d find something. Something you’d actually want to see.

“But you . . .” I say, my voice too quiet for this clamor, and Reid ducks his head, brings his ear closer to my lips so he can hear me. “You always say what you mean.”

He leans back again, his eyes tracing over my face—my eyes, my nose, my mouth. Please forget I’m wearing Hello Kitty faces, I think.

“I don’t. Because if I did—”

Somewhere down the bar a glass breaks and someone shouts an unintelligible expletive, but neither of us moves. I’m watching Reid’s mouth in case I have to lip-read what he says next.

“If I did, I would say that last week I watched every video you’ve got on your website so I could hear the sound of your voice again. I would say that a woman stood next to me on the subway and I think she used the same shampoo as you, and I could hardly breathe for how much I missed you. I would say that I walked around all day with a Meg-shaped shadow beside me, and I only came in here because of the signs outside, and so I wouldn’t call you up at nine o’clock on a Friday night and beg you to talk to me again—about Frisbee, the weather, the name for that piece of a letter you told me about—”

“A spur,” I whisper, because holy shit. This is the best fight of my whole life.

He nods, his face so serious. “A spur,” he repeats.

Then he drops his eyes to the bar, to my card, and adds one more thing.

“I would say I like you so much, Meg.”

And then—right then, the real fight breaks out.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“A couple of stitches ought to do it.”

The doctor leaning in to take one final look at Reid’s eyebrow has the efficient, slightly impatient demeanor of a woman who has seen a whole lot worse, and who probably has a whole lot worse waiting for her out in the lobby of this urgent care. She reaches up a latex-gloved hand and touches her index finger to the lump forming around the cut on Reid’s brow, and I see his jaw clench tightly against the pressure she’s put there.

“Sorry, big guy,” she says, lowering her hand and leaning back, pulling off her gloves. “The good news is, I don’t think you’re concussed.”

“I told you I wasn’t,” Reid says, sullenly.

“Yes, that was helpful. To have your expert medical opinion.” She looks over at me and rolls her eyes.