in the seat and reaches up with both hands, tugging at either side of my crumpled collar where it’s been crushed by my coat. She has these long, elegant fingers and she uses them to smooth the fabric back out and probably make me look three times more respectable with that single move.
“Your collar was always a mess. It makes you look unfinished. Always did.”
She has a dimple that dents in on her left cheek. I love the asymmetrical way it unbalances her face. Has it always been there?
I slide my hand to hers slowly and tap one finger on the point of her middle knuckle.
“And popping your knuckles is your tell. Keep it under wraps, Toni, and your enemies won’t be able to read that you’re nervous.” I draw my finger over the ridges and bumps of her hand, which she’s relaxed out of a fist.
“My enemies?” She laughs and her eyes follow the trail my finger makes. “Why do I get the feeling you always saw me as the female version of Genghis Khan?”
“I never said you reminded me of Genghis Khan,” I scoff. She tilts her head and I add, “Mr. Ryan told us he was a red-head in freshman history class, right? You’re so much more a Henry the VIII type.”
Her laugh loosens something in my chest and makes me feel instantly good, like I just tossed back a decent shot of smooth whiskey.
“He was obese, Landry!” She moves her hand so her fingers drum my knee. It seems nonchalant, but it’s clearly not.
“You’re like a young, svelte Henry VIII,” I amend and rub a hand over my scruff before I stretch out, pushing my leg further into her space. “So, what’s been up with you since we last talked?”
She knits her eyebrows. “Well, when we last talked, I was in my sophomore year at NYU. I think I was still a bio major, right?”
I have no clue what her major was, but I love the way she’s looking at me, her face easy and pretty, so I lie. “Yeah, it was at the fair over the summer when I saw you, and you told me about the bio stuff. So that didn’t work out? You didn’t want to be a scientist or whatever?”
One light eyebrow goes up and her fingers go still on my leg like she can see right through my lie. “It was actually my attempt to make a stab at pre-med. What happened was that I interned at a local veterinary office and passed out when they let me sit in on a sheep’s emergency throat surgery.”
“You passed out?” I smile, just a little, and she smiles back and blushes. “Really? Out cold?”
“Cold.” She starts out nodding, but it turns into a headshake. “I switched majors pretty quickly after that. The sheep was fine, by the way.”
“Right,” I laugh. “Forgot all about the poor woolly guy. I just keep picturing you face-planting on some hospital floor.”
Toni rolls those big brown eyes. “Your compassion has always been your finest quality, Landry.” She shrugs out of her coat and clutches her scarf anxiously. “Anyway, I switched to a double major in business and music. So I help my parents do all the books for their flower shop, and I commute to the city three days a week for graduate training at CUNY. I was coming back from a late rehearsal tonight.”
“Where is your fiddle?” I look to see if it’s lying on the floor or something, but she’s traveling light.
“Violin,” she corrects, automatically, before she can catch herself. It’s one of our old jokes, a mistake I used to make constantly and on purpose just to get her riled. Her smile is self-deprecating. “Funny, Landry. You know, I also play piano. That’s what I was rehearing tonight. It’s for a concert.”
“A PhD in music.” I sound impressed, and it’s not bullshit. I am impressed as all hell. “So you kinda got it all figured out, don’t you?”
When she looks at me, her face is serious, but not accusatory. “That was the plan. All that studying and achieving in high school? That was so I could be freer now. And it was worth it. I was stuck then anyway. Now I’m free in a way I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t worked so hard back then.”
“Free, huh?” I shake my head. “All that time I thought you were uptight because that was just who you were. Now I find out it was all part