she was trying to kill him. Of course, if she did have murderous intent, she could just poison him when they had lunch together—which was almost every day. Or maybe shove him into the ocean when they met on the beach—which was every single night.
On second thought, whatever she was trying to do, it probably didn’t involve his eventual demise. But sometimes, when she smiled at him in a certain way, or said his name with that aching, unexplainable softness in her voice, Samir thought he might just die anyway.
When she called him on a Saturday evening in May, he hadn’t seen her all day, which was a rarity. Combine that with the fact that she’d never actually called him before, and Samir almost had a heart attack when her name flashed up on his caller ID. He brought the phone to his ear so hard and so fast, he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d bruised his own bloody face. “Laura? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Well, hello to you too,” she said, and that was all it took for him to relax. She was fine. He could hear it the way he heard her sadness sometimes, or her nerves, or her whirring, worrying mind.
Samir sank back in his office chair and smiled. At this point, it was an automatic response to the sound of her voice. “You called. You never call.”
“That’s funny. Bump’s grandpa said the same thing this afternoon.”
“Oh?” Samir didn’t need to know anything about this mysterious grandparent. Even so, he froze, every atom of his body at attention, just in case she was about to say…. something. Something that would reveal more of her secrets to him. Something that might explain the shadows he saw in her, the ones he couldn’t quite shine a light on.
But in the end, all he got was an absent, “Mmm. Anyway, I was actually…” She trailed off for a moment, sounding almost painfully self-conscious, the way she did sometimes. She’d never been like that before. It was funny; adulthood and freedom from his parents had given Samir a confidence his teenage self had only ever faked. But something in Laura’s life had done the opposite to her, unravelling the once-tight threads of her self-esteem. He wanted to know what.
Though he already had some ideas.
She cleared her throat, and he could almost see her now: lifting her chin, setting those broad shoulders like a general. He liked that, liked those moments when she paused and pulled herself together; those moments when she made a conscious decision to be brave.
He wondered what she was being brave about this time.
Then she told him outright. “I was wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner.”
He almost fell out of his chair. “Dinner?” Shit. Had his voice always been so rough?
“Yes. I have all these prawns that need to be eaten,” she said, her tone almost defiantly casual. “Or, you know, they’ll go off. There’s a lot. I lost it in Sainsbury’s last week and bought a shit ton.”
“Ah. So you’re recruiting the greediest eater you know for assistance?”
“Yep!” she said promptly. As if there was absolutely no other reason why she’d ever ask.
He wasn’t disappointed. That would be childish. His very platonic, very untouchable, highly adorable friend was inviting him to dinner, and there was absolutely nothing disappointing about that.
So Samir made sure to sound especially cheerful when he replied. “I’m up to the challenge. When do you want me?”
“Oh, any time. I’m hardly busy. All I do is order too much baby stuff online and reread The Secret.”
He snorted. “In that case, I’d better come and save you from yourself.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Lovely,” she said. “I’ll leave the door unlocked.”
Laura made dinner in this long, low-slung skirt that floated when she moved. There was a little gap between the hem of her T-shirt and the waistband of that skirt, and when she reached up to get ingredients out of the cupboard, that gap widened. Then she’d lower her arms, and the gap would narrow again.
Slowly, steadily, the skin revealed and concealed by that gap sent Samir out of his fucking mind. By the time she produced dessert, his conversation was reduced to babbled inanities like, “Oh. Jelly. Did you make this?”
“Is it that obvious? I’ve been making tons of sweets recently. Cravings.” She grimaced and scooped up a spoonful. The silver slid between her lips a little too slowly for Samir’s peace of mind, her fine mouth plumping under the pressure. Then she