world to open itself to her, full of promises and creatures, teeming with every ragged desire that had chased her ever since she had first pried open her infant eyes and watched the colors blur and shake into shapes.
She wanted it all.
She knew she couldn’t have whatever she wanted. Not everything, and not forever. And yet, in this moment, poised on this threshold, yes or no, part of her rose up, rebelled: Why shouldn’t she try? Other people did.
He was too good for her, of course. But if you stumbled upon a diamond in the street, did you throw it in the gutter for someone else to find? No. You clutched it tighter. You held it for as long as you could.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Kate rose from her seat and went over to him. While his eyes were still surprised, she swung her leg over him and straddled him, so that they were chest to chest, forehead to forehead. She was too close to see his expression shift into understanding, but she felt it in the way his muscles loosened, his shoulders going slack and his hands, those hands, coming to rest on her hips.
She remembered seeing him in the backyard the first time. The sensation that had fallen across her skin, like frozen fingers being thrust into warm water. At the time, she had thought it was fear. But perhaps it was a deeper kind of startling.
“Hi,” he said, and she laid her mouth to his before he could finish shaping the word.
* * *
Sweat, musk. Late morning through the windows, warming a square of sun on the bed as they lay there getting their breath back. Theo hadn’t changed the sheets since they had abused them on Saturday, which Kate—usually a laundry fanatic—found strangely comforting. She liked being better at something than him, even if that something was laundry.
“I hope you know I’m not counting this toward my hours,” she said, propping her chin on his forearm. “Ground rules.”
Theo hesitated, then nodded. “Ground rules,” he agreed. “And when Jemima and Oscar are around, we’ll be…”
“Discreet.”
“For now.”
For now made Kate think about the future, which she didn’t want to do.
Theo must have sensed her discomfort, because he changed the subject, saying instead, “So you met Hal yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you think?”
Kate thought for a moment. “Smart,” she said finally. “Slippery. He puts on a whole show, but the show is like an inside joke.”
Theo nodded. “He likes to seem a little fake. In a way, I think it’s better. You know what you’re getting. He uses you, but he doesn’t make a secret about it.”
Kate wasn’t so sure Hal was as straightforward as Theo thought. But she wasn’t going to argue the point.
“Why did you go see him, anyway?” Theo asked.
She tilted her head to look up at him. It was hard to read his expression from this angle, but she thought the question was genuinely casual. He was staring into space, idly running his fingers up and down her arm. When she didn’t answer right away, he looked back at her face, his gaze sharpening.
“Kate?”
It would be easy to lie. She had already lied so much to him. But she was still all twisted up inside from the sex, wrung clean. She pushed herself up to lean against the headboard.
“Theo,” she said, “do you ever think your mother might have been murdered?”
The words sounded so strange, so distant, coming out of her mouth. Theo blinked at her once, twice, and then his face grew solemn.
“No,” he said flatly. “I don’t.”
She already knew she had made a mistake. Still, she pressed, “Really? Because you must have known there were issues with the case, right?”
“Did you watch that 60 Minutes special or something?”
“No. I mean, yes. But that’s not why I’m asking.”
He rolled over and swung his legs off the bed. Kate continued, “It’s just, looking through her papers, she doesn’t seem like … it doesn’t seem like she would have killed herself.”
“No? You know she spent two months in a psych ward, right? For threatening to kill me?”
“Right. Yeah, I know. It’s just … wait, will you look at me?”
He turned his head to look over his shoulder. The muscles of his back moved as he twisted. But he didn’t turn all the way, and she could still only see his profile, backlit by the bright window behind him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to bring up something difficult. I just meant, that’s why