Brutal Game by Cara McKenna Page B

mistaking her silence for distance.
    She shook her head. “No. I want you here.”
    “Good.”
    “I want you to spend the night, if you want that too.”
    “I wanna be whatever you need.”
    “You always are.” And what she needed right now was a strong pair of arms holding her, keeping her together even as the ground seemed to be crumbling away beneath her feet.

8
    “ S omething to drink while you wait?”
    “Water’s fine.” Flynn looked past the waitress to the restaurant’s front windows. He thought to tack on a tardy “Thanks” just as she turned to walk away. His etiquette was rusty, and his mood wasn’t helping.
    The place wasn’t fancy, just a little Sicilian hole-in-the-wall at the edge of the North End. The food was phenomenal—he’d been here before with Laurel—but the napkins were paper and most of the entrées were less than twenty bucks. Still, if he wasn’t ordering off a board tacked above a row of registers, it felt strange.
    He checked his phone. Five after. Not like Laurel to be late, but also not like Laurel to spring a last-minute date on him. They hardly ever went on dates, probably only once or twice a month. They’d been on precisely zero the past few weeks, and if he was honest, he wasn’t really in the mood. But Laurel had sounded so excited over the phone, there was no way he could’ve said no.
    The period following the miscarriage had been rough. He’d done his best to be whatever she needed, but as often as not, she hadn’t seemed sure of what that was. She’d been clingy one moment, cool the next, acting as though she’d rather be away from him but denying that she did. Even when he’d seemed to be doing exactly what she needed, he’d felt lost.
    She’d caught him just as he’d been leaving work today, wanting him to meet her at six. He’d been hoping to go to the gym instead, but he’d dutifully gone home and showered off the plaster dust and dressed in his least beat-up jeans and the black sweater she’d given him for Christmas, ran a cloth over his only dress shoes. Glancing around, he figured he passed, even if he felt like a rhino perched on this spindly wooden chair. Even if he was the only patron with stitches bisecting their left eyebrow. Or any other body part, come to that.
    Oh fucking well.
    He’d give just about anything to be back in Southie, beating the shit out of a heavy bag, feeling nothing. But if the price was letting Laurel down, he wasn’t willing to pay it.
    It was mid-March, and a springy March at that. Only a few scabs of brown snow still clung to the shadier sidewalks, and the air smelled good, like winter was officially in the rearview. The sky was blue beyond the restaurant’s tall windows; the days were getting longer.
    Laurel was getting stronger. Seeming more like her old self.
    Flynn wished he could say the same.
    I know this feeling. I’ve lived through it before.
    It was grief. No mistaking it. But grief this real and this nagging, for a near-microscopic little—
    A tap on his shoulder turned Flynn’s head, and there she was. Smiling, looking gorgeous. Looking happy , her red hair pulled back in a ponytail and a few inches of bare leg visible between the tops of her fancy boots and the hem of a wool skirt. Her coat was folded over her arm.
    “Hey, beautiful.” He stood and kissed her cheek, pulled out the opposite chair for her.
    “Hey. Thanks.” She draped her coat over the chair back and sat, letting him go through that weird charade of pretending like he was helping as she scooted her seat in.
    “Didn’t see you come in,” he said, sitting.
    “There’s two doors. Sorry I’m late.”
    “Barely.”
    “You look quite sexy,” she said, bobbing her eyebrows. “Nice sweater.”
    He mustered a smile, feeling like a fraud. “Thanks. My old lady got it for me.”
    “Not so old.” She pulled a menu over.
    “You look hot as fuck,” he told her. Her legs drove him up a wall. Always had. He wished she wore skirts