Twisted Fate (Dark Heart Duet #2) - Ella James Page 0,51
dessert plates beside her.
“Less?” Her brown eyes flicker up toward me. “Like…as in Arthur Less?”
I suck air in through my nose as I turn back toward the kitchen to grab glasses for the cider. “That’s his name.”
“I read that last month. Did you like it? Did you like him?”
“Well…yeah.” I flash a quick grin. “Isn’t that sort of the point?”
“What do you mean?”
I twist the top off the cider, hesitating before I pour some in a glass. “Doesn’t the author want to make us like him?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think they don’t.”
I shrug. “I almost always like them.”
“Them being…any lead in a book?”
I nod, sitting down across from her, sliding her glass across the table. I could sit beside her, but I want to see her hand around the glass, her throat as she swallows.
“They’re usually endearing.”
She takes a bite of her pizza, and I do the same. There’s this moment where I realize this is fucking crazy—that she came back over here, given who she is and who I am—but I do what I can to keep the conversation moving.
“I like that the writer took a stab at writing about another writer. I don’t think I’d do that.”
“If you were a writer?”
I nod. “Seems like you could fuck that up.”
“I feel like writing about what you know makes sense.”
I shrug. I would never want to write about what I know; maybe that’s the problem.
“I’m surprised you’re reading that book.”
I give her a little smile that’s not a smile, because I’m dreading hearing what she thinks I would read. “What would you expect?”
“I guess what you used to say you read. Like Stephen King. More genre fiction.”
“I think Mr. King defies the genres, don’t you?”
A funny look passes over her face—amusement.
“What, you disagree?” I smile.
“You called him Mr. King, like this is an article in the New York Times.”
“Our local rag, you mean?” I tilt my head, looking skeptical.
She gives a soft snort, then has another bite of pizza.
“Is this not what you expected?” I ask, amused by how shy she seems.
“I don’t know.” She frowns down at her plate before she looks briefly at me—and she is definitely shy. “I thought you wouldn’t have time to read.”
“Well, that’s true. I do have a rockin’ social life.”
“Do you?”
I laugh. “No. I read and I watch…” I trail off when I realize this all might sound lame or—so much worse—sad.
“What else do you do?” She’s leaning slightly forward now, like she really wants to know.
“Uhh. Watch TV. Go out to a show sometimes.” A show, Luca?
“What kind of shows?”
“You know. Plays and shit.” Oh yes. Plays and shit. I take a swallow of the cider stuff.
“Do you go out with Isa?”
Ah, fuck. It takes some effort to keep my face neutral. “Isa’s not around much.”
“Where is she?”
“She travels.”
“She does that for work, right?”
I snort, and then feel like a dick for belittling Isa’s job. “Yeah, it’s work, I guess.”
“She gets paid, right?”
“Oh yeah. Lots of people pay her, plus they send her things in the mail.”
“Sounds like a pretty cool job to me.” Elise looks earnest, like she’s trying to be generous. It would make me smile, except I don’t really want to talk about jobs.
She takes a swallow of her cider, and my hunch was right. It was a good move to be across from her.
“What about you?” she asks. “Do you like what you do? You asked me that.”
Shit, I guess I did—up on the roof that night at the CB.
“Did you answer?” I give her an exaggerated side-eye sort of look, intended to distract.
I can tell I make my mark, because her cheeks flush. “I’m not sure.”
“Is that a ‘no’ from you then?”
“No, I mean—it’s a yes. I do like it. So far. Kind of.”
“That’s a lot of qualifiers, Ms.—O’Hara.”
She laughs, shaking her head.
I got a degree in philosophy, I think of saying. That’s because I want her to see me in a certain light. But…I can’t. I can’t tell her I got started the spring after she stepped into the elevator with me. That Columbia was still happy to take me on—free of charge. I bet she would laugh if she knew I almost went with economics, but it seemed too dry, and also pointless. All that talk about wealth.
I’m worth millions is another thing I’d love to say to Elise. It’s true, after all. Some of it was gifted to me by Lamberto, but isn’t that how wealth is almost always obtained? That old fuck