The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,60
or laugh, but instead, she stares back through the beveled glass insert of the shop door. She watches the boy every time he comes into the frame. She cannot tear her eyes away.
I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember you. I remember—
“What are you doing?”
She blinks, and sees him standing in the open doorway, arms crossed. The sun has shifted lower in the sky, the light going thin.
“Waiting for you,” she says, cringing as soon as she says it. “I wanted to apologize,” she continues. “For the whole book thing.”
“It’s fine,” he says curtly.
“No, it’s not,” she says, rising to her feet. “Let me buy you a coffee.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I insist. As an apology.”
“I’m working.”
“Please.”
And it must be something in the way she says it, the sheer mix of hope and need, the obvious fact it means more than a book, more than a sorry, that makes the boy look her in the eyes, makes her realize that he hadn’t really, not until now. There’s something strange, searching in his gaze, but whatever he sees when he looks at her, it changes his mind.
“One coffee,” he says. “And you’re still banned from the shop.”
Addie feels the air rush back into her lungs. “Deal.”
New York City
March 13, 2014
IX
Addie lingers on the bookstore steps for an hour until it closes.
Henry locks up, and turns to see her sitting there, and Addie braces again for the blankness in his gaze, the confirmation that their earlier encounter was only some strange glitch, a slipped stitch in the centuries of her curse.
But when he looks at her, he knows her. She is certain he knows her.
His brows go up beneath his tangled curls, as if he’s surprised that she’s still there. But his annoyance has given way to something else—something that confuses her even more. It’s less hostile than suspicion, more guarded than relief, and it is still wonderful, because of the knowing in it. Not a first meeting, but a second—or rather, a third—and for once she is not the only one who knows.
“Well?” he says, holding out his hand, not for her to take, but for her to lead the way, and she does. They walk a few blocks in awkward silence, Addie stealing glances that tell her nothing but the line of his nose, the angle of his jaw.
He has a starved look, wolfish and lean, and even though he’s not unnaturally tall, he hunches his shoulders as if to make himself shorter, smaller, less obtrusive. Perhaps, in the right clothes, perhaps, with the right air, perhaps, perhaps; but the longer she looks at him, the weaker the resemblance to that other stranger.
And yet.
There is something about him that keeps catching her attention, snagging it the way a nail snags a sweater.
Twice he catches her looking at him, and frowns.
Once she catches him stealing his own glance, and smiles.
At the coffee shop, she tells him to grab a table while she buys the drinks, and he hesitates, as if torn between the urge to pay and the fear of being poisoned, before retreating to a corner booth. She orders him a latte.
“Three eighty,” says the girl behind the counter.
Addie cringes at the cost. She pulls a few bills from her pocket, the last of what she took from James St. Clair. She doesn’t have the cash for two drinks, and she can’t just walk out with them, because there’s a boy waiting. And he remembers.
Addie glances toward the table, where he sits, arms folded, staring out the window.
“Eve!” calls the barista.
“Eve!”
Addie startles, realizing that means her.
“So,” says the boy when she sits down. “Eve?”
No, she thinks. “Yeah,” she says. “And you’re…”
Henry, she thinks just before he says it.
“Henry.” It fits him, like a coat. Henry: soft, poetic. Henry: quiet, strong. The black curls, the pale eyes behind their heavy frames. She has known a dozen Henrys, in London, Paris, Boston, and L.A., but he is not like any of them.
His gaze drops to the table, his cup, her empty hands. “You didn’t get anything.”
She waves it away. “I’m not really thirsty,” she lies.
“It feels weird.”
“Why?” She shrugs. “I said I’d buy you a coffee. Besides,” she hesitates, “I lost my wallet. I didn’t have enough for two.”