My blood is pounding so hard I barely hear what they say. The usual pleasantries, how they’re so excited to read the book, early talk of promotions, foreign sales, book festivals. After everyone signs off, Nathan hangs up and drops his phone into his pocket.
“How about we take a walk?” Nathan suggests suddenly.
I look up, not sure I’ve heard him right.
“We heard everyone else’s opinion about how we should approach this interview,” he goes on. “I wonder what we want out of it.”
I study him. Doesn’t he want what they do—book sales? Why else would he be writing with me in the first place?
“Unless . . .” He falters, his eyes skirting from me.
Swiftly, I rise from my seat. I’m not shying away from this conversation, not if Nathan’s willing to have it. “A walk sounds lovely.”
Something crosses his expression, a softness I haven’t seen on him in years.
It makes him unbearably handsome.
33
Nathan
We walk through the neighborhood. I’m calm, which I guess I didn’t expect, knowing what we’re going to be discussing. Even I’m aware of how unlike me proposing this walk was. I just couldn’t face spending the night in the shadow of the publicity call.
On our street, the start of sunset casts orange over everything. We catch slices of ocean between the houses, the breeze rolling innocently off the water. It’s the hour of prepping for dinner or driving home from the office, and no one is out right now. It’s just me and Katrina.
I wonder if she realizes I hardly slept last night. She probably does—the dark circles under my eyes look like boxers’ bruises, which is fitting, seeing how much time I’ve spent in the ring with my subconscious recently. She’d sent me to bed with literary transference and the grim gratification of knowing what she was implying—she’d practically confessed to feeling attracted to me, whether founded in our writing or not.
But as the night wore on, I’d felt guiltier for mocking her explanation. I couldn’t impeach her motives—she wanted to keep us from treading into treacherous waters or dredging up our past. Which was what I wanted. Furthermore, I reasoned, was her explanation so different from what I’d told myself when the table incident happened? I reconstructed the day—I’d promised myself my reaction was purely physical while Katrina had gone upstairs once we got off the phone with Jen.
Which was when I remembered the call today in preparation for the interview. Despite her unusual willingness to do the Times piece, I’m fairly certain one thing hasn’t changed over the years. Katrina hates publicity. Before bookstore events promoting our debut, I would practice panel question responses with her to ease her reluctance. I wrote the majority of our interview responses for blogs or websites because I knew they grated on her. I could only imagine today’s call did not have her in the calmest frame of mind.
Feeling remorseful for how I’d handled her transference explanation, I decided—today, I could be Katrina’s friend. From there, we would see.
“Was it just me,” she starts while we walk, “or did it feel like they wanted us to neither confirm nor deny whether we had an affair?” She speaks casually, like she’s wondering what frozen food to heat up, not opening up the question that ruined us.
I cough. “It wasn’t just you.”
“I get it,” Katrina continues easily. “Of course the reporter will ask those questions.”
“But we don’t have to do what they’re suggesting,” I cut in. “We can tell the reporter the truth. Our relationship is professional, and we never slept together. Not while we wrote Only Once, not ever. We’ve never even kissed.” I’m instantly conscious of what implications might lie under what I’ve just said. Affairs concern sleeping with other people. The kissing hardly comes into it, so in a way, I’ve accidentally answered a question no one asked. Except myself.
Katrina laughs. “The truth,” she muses.
“It is the truth, Katrina.” I’m pressing now, the intensity in my voice incoherent with the tranquility of the Florida evening. But I need this out there if I’m going to hold on to this tentative effort to be friendly toward her.
“I know that,” she snaps.
The sudden sting in her tone surprises me. I look over. She’s facing forward, her mouth flat. What does she want me to say? Does she want me to confess to how I can’t stop thinking about her, how I can’t sleep, how I hate the progress we’ve made on the book because I know once we finish, she’ll be gone from me?
There’s a bigger reason why the full truth is unwelcome, one she knows. I voice it, anyway. “You’re engaged,” I say quietly. “Aren’t you worried how this could affect your relationship?”
Chris was on the call, I note in my head, and didn’t object once. I just don’t understand it. Regardless of whatever personal feelings I may have, I won’t wish on Katrina what I went through at the end of my marriage. While I don’t like Chris, I respect the commitment he and Katrina made. I refuse to break it, not physically and not in insinuation to this reporter or the world.
Katrina gives me a cutting glance out of the corner of her eye. The sun is low now, the light a golden glow on her face. She takes a deep breath.
“Chris gave me permission to fuck you if it meant finishing this book,” she says. “So I doubt he’d care about rumors.”
I stop walking. That word from Katrina has caught my mind like a sharp corner, ripping a gash in how I expected this night would go.
Sensing I’m not with her, Katrina pauses. She faces me from a few feet ahead on the sidewalk. “I didn’t, like, ask if I could, if that’s what you’re freaking out about,” she says.
It wasn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to me. “Do you . . . have an open relationship?” The question jumps into the space in my head her words emptied. It’s not even the most important question. In fact, it feels silly. But for some reason, I need it answered first.
Katrina huffs a laugh. “I guess so.” She looks past me, like she’d never contemplated the possibility. “When it’ll sell copies.”
“That’s an awful thing to say.” There’s no malice in my reply. The sadness of what she’s said is so huge it eclipses even the fact her fiancé said she could sleep with me. Because this is how it is with Katrina, my subconscious whispers to me. It’s not just Kat herself I find irresistible—her laughter, her eyes, her body. It’s this. It’s the impulses so much simpler, so much more innocent, so much more fundamental. To feel her wounds with her. To be there for her. To help her through. Even now, I couldn’t fight it if I tried. My first thought is for her.