Chapter 5
I opened my eyes to a face four inches from mine.
She was staring at me, and there was a cat in her arms, staring with the same gravity.
The cat let out a low hiss when I looked at it.
I had no idea where I was.
She didn't blink. "Who are you?"
The voice was high and confident. I tried to speak, but nothing came out the first time. The orchestra in my head changed key while I worked on it.
"I'm Beau." My mouth was at half speed. "Beau Cross."
The cat hissed again. She didn't look at the cat. "I'm Bonnie. Why are you on my couch?"
That was a fair question. I had questions of my own. Whose couch, blanket, and ceiling are these?
The light through the window hit me in the face like a personal insult, so I rolled to get away from it. I rolled too hard. The couch ended sooner than I had guessed. I went over the edge, and the floor took my full weight without sympathy.
"Damn—”
She raised both eyebrows. The cat in her arms didn't move.
I put my hand over my eyes, and the light went down a notch, but the orchestra stayed.
She didn't raise her voice. "You didn't answer my question."
I dragged my hand down my face. "I know. I'm working on it."
She tilted her head a quarter inch. "Why are you on my couch?"
I lowered my hand. She was still there, wearing what looked like a school uniform, hair in a ponytail that leaned seriously to the left, water bottle in one hand, and the cat slipped free and landed at her feet.
I sat up slowly, slower than I'd intended, and the headache punished me for the movement.
"I'm sorry." I went for a smile. "I think I just needed a place to sleep last night."
She considered this. The cat at her feet blinked once.
She tipped her chin toward the doorway behind her. "My name is Bonnie. Coffee's in the kitchen. My mom's in the shower."
She walked off without waiting for an answer, the cat going with her.
I looked up, then around.
The apartment was small and lived-in, with a yellow lamp in the corner.
A wall above the TV was taped over with kid art—marker drawings, the upgrade visible.
A pink sneaker lay by the door. Through a doorway, I could see the kitchen, with a counter, two stools, and a row of orange pill bottles whose labels I didn't let myself read.
A calendar on the fridge had a date circled in red.
A drawing on the fridge read MY FAMILY across the top in green marker.
I hadn't woken up in a stranger's apartment in this state in my adult life.
Bonnie came back, bare feet on the hardwood now, and she set a glass of water and two pills on the coffee table in front of me.
"You look like my mom when her head hurts. This is what she takes all the time."
I trusted her dead serious expression and took the pills. She probably knew what she was feeding me. The water tasted chlorinated and faintly metallic, the best thing I'd ever drunk. I emptied the glass.
She climbed back into the armchair across from me with a bowl of cereal. The cereal was bright pink. The cat climbed into the chair with her, tucked along her thigh, watching me.
She lifted a spoonful. "Were you drunk last night?"
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Yes."
She nodded, put the spoonful in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed before she went on. "My mother says drunk people make decisions they wouldn't make sober."
I had no argument. "Your mother is correct."
She nodded again and went back to the cereal.
I watched her eat.
A part of me wanted to ask whose apartment this was, whose mother she was quoting, whose couch had broken my back overnight, but I didn't. I had a working theory. The hair gave her away—same dark curls, same set of the chin.
She finished the cereal and took the bowl to the kitchen. When she came back, she picked up one of the orange bottles and shook two pills into her palm. Then she washed them down with juice from a purple glass and set the bottle back exactly where it had been.
She came back to the armchair, and the cat reclaimed her lap. She lifted him under his front legs. "This is Pickles."
I tipped my chin at him. "Hi, Pickles."
The cat looked at me with the level, open contempt of a creature who wasn't buying any of this.
She kissed the top of his head. "He's the best cat in the world."
I had no quarrel with that. "I bet he is."
She watched the cat watch me. "He doesn't usually like people."
I held the cat's eye. "I can see that."
The cat blinked at me, slow, like he was practicing something.
She stood up, took her purple glass to the kitchen, and disappeared down the hall. The cat went with her, tail high.
I let my head go back against the couch.
Pieces of the night were arriving in the wrong order—Half Past, Sabrina at the bar in an apron with a pen tucked behind her ear, Kit pouring, the glasses I drank, Sabrina on the phone with someone called Baby, and me—God help me—being a problem about it, then a car, her hand, humming…
Then nothing.
Cade is going to kill me.
A door opened down the hall, and Sabrina's voice came low, close to the floor. There was a murmur back and footsteps, light then heavier, coming this way.
Bonnie came around the corner first, the cat in her arms, and she climbed back into the armchair without a glance at me.
Then Sabrina.
Her hair was wet, twisted up, and clipped at the nape of her neck.
She was wearing jeans and a white tee—no apron, no pen, bare feet.
She came into the living room without looking at me, went directly to the kitchen counter, took down a coffee mug, and filled it from a pot that had been standing there the whole time.
She stayed at the counter with her back to me for one beat longer than the coffee required.
When she turned, she didn't smile. "Mr. Cross."
I cleared my throat. "Sabrina."
The memory hit me at the wrong angle.
Her palm was flat against my chest. My hand was on top of hers, holding it there, humming a tune I couldn't, even now, place.
Pretty Sabrina, I like you a lot.
I'd said that out loud to a woman who was currently looking at me like I'd broken something of hers and not paid for it yet.
She set the mug down. "Bonnie. Backpack, please."
Bonnie tucked the cat tighter. "I gave him your headache pills, Mom."
Sabrina didn't look at her daughter. "Backpack."
Bonnie's mouth opened. "I just—"
"Backpack."
Bonnie went. The cat went with her. The bedroom door clicked.
Sabrina set her coffee down on the counter and crossed her arms. She still didn't look at me. "You need to leave, Mr. Cross. Now."
I was already on my feet. "I—yeah. Yes. I—" I patted my jacket. The phone wasn't there. I tried the other pocket. "My phone—"
"Charging." She tipped her chin at the kitchen counter.
The phone was plugged in beside the toaster. She probably had charged it while she had been in the shower, while I'd been on her couch. I looked at the phone, then at her, then at the phone again.
"Thank you."
She didn't answer.
I crossed to the counter and picked up the phone. The screen was still dark—booting, not enough juice yet. I set it back on the counter.
She was an arm's length from me, facing the sink, hands flat on the counter on either side of the bowl Bonnie had left.
"Sabrina."
She didn't turn. "Mmm…"
"I hope I wasn't too much trouble last night."
She kept her eyes on the sink. "What do you think?"
The laugh came up before I'd decided to allow it.
"I'm sure I was a tremendous amount of trouble."
She laughed.
It came out as one short beat—half a syllable, no more—and her hand went up to her mouth as if to take it back. But she didn't take it back, and the laugh stayed in the room.
I smiled and leaned a hip against the counter. It put me a foot from her shoulder, but my balance and my judgment weren't going to win an argument with each other today.
"Could I make it up to you? Dinner?"
She turned the tap on for one second, off again. "I have to work."
I didn't move from the counter. "I'll bring it to you."
She picked up my phone off the counter, glanced at the screen, and held it out without looking at my face.
"That should be enough power to get you on your way."
I unplugged and took it.
This was as far as her generosity went. I should’ve moved.
A picture on the wall behind her—a kid's marker, framed, three figures and a cat under what was either a sun or a flower. It was hung crooked. A quarter inch low on the right.
I crossed the kitchen.
The trajectory took me a foot from her shoulder. She turned her head, slow, watching me come. I lifted my hand toward the corner of the frame, and my arm passed her arm by an inch, no more.
Heat came off her shirt.
We were a foot apart.
Kiss her now and find out what happens.
I lifted the corner of the frame a quarter inch, then let it back down. The framed picture was straight.
I stepped back, and she turned her face back to the sink.
I picked up my jacket from the arm of the couch and my phone, then walked to the door. She didn't turn around. I said goodbye to the back of her shirt, but she didn't answer.
My hand was on the knob when I stopped.
"Sabrina."
She didn't turn.
"Could I have your number?"
"No," she replied without turning, without hesitating.
Bonnie came around the corner with her backpack on one shoulder, water bottle in the other hand, ponytail straighter than it had been.
I turned to her. "Bonnie."
She looked up.
"Could I have your mother's number?"
Bonnie's eyes flicked to her mother.
Sabrina turned, fast, mouth open— "Bonnie, don't—"
"Five-five-five—"
"Bonnie—"
"Two-three-eight—"
"Bonnie!"
" Seven-one-zero-four."
I had it in the phone before Sabrina got her sentence out. I saved it and closed the phone.
Sabrina looked at me, then at Bonnie.
Bonnie shrugged at her mother. "He asked nicely, Mom."
I couldn't help myself. "I guess she likes me."
I closed the door behind me before Sabrina could get a hand on the nearest object.