Free About Last Night by Ruthie Knox Page B

the floor to send the chair into a wild spin while a six-year-old girl with pigtails jumped up and down in her head and shouted, Co-author! My name on a catalog published by the V&A! Whee!
    She wished she could tell her mom. Would she have been proud? It was hard to envision pride on Mom’s face. In its place, there had always been worry. Judgment. Exasperation.
    And Cath had deserved that. She’d been a rotten daughter, at least from the time she was fourteen or so. After Daddy died, she’d gone bad, and she’d stayed that way right up to the end of Mom’s life.
    But it was nice to picture Mom proud of her, to pretend she’d have said, You’ve done well, love , in her clipped, working-class English accent.
    It was nice to think of anyone at all being proud of her, for that matter. To imagine having someone to tell her news to.
    You could tell Nev .
    Still spinning, she closed her eyes for a second and let herself fantasize about what it would be like to have him to tell. She could see the indulgent way he’d smile at her. He’d call her Mary Catherine and kiss her. They’d go out to dinner somewhere fancy with too many forks, somewhere they’d eat their salad after the entrée and follow dessert with cognac. He’d make love to her later like a precious thing, and she’d bask in his approval.
    The chair slowly spun to a halt, and when she opened her eyes, she saw her computer desk squeezed up against the photocopier, which was squeezed up against the conference table, which was squeezed up against Judith’s tiny compartment of an office only eight feet away. Cath didn’t have a door or a job title or any firm prospects after the exhibit went up in eight weeks.
    She’d come a long way, but she had a long way left to go, and Judith’s announcement confirmed what she’d already known. New Cath was on exactly the right course. What had happened with City was 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
    She couldn’t go down that road again. If she’d learned anything at all since Mom got cancer, it was that all her instincts were backward. She had to plan out her moves carefully, charting the steps, distrusting her impulses, because her impulses always led her astray. If she wanted a man, that was proof positive she should stay as far away from him as possible.
    Especially if she wanted him as badly as she wanted Nev.

Chapter Eight
    He was waiting for her on the platform. Cath studied him as she approached, soaking up all the differences the day had made in him. Tiny things she might not have noticed before, when he was simply City. The crease between his eyebrows and the tension in his shoulders told her he was tired. His stubble had grown in—not too much, but enough to soften the line of his jaw and draw her attention to the contrast. In the morning, he could’ve modeled for GQ . By late afternoon, he reminded her more of an overworked prince, fretting about the condition of his subjects. It made her want to smooth her hands over his temples and kiss him.
    She should’ve taken an earlier train.
    Unsure what the protocol was for this arranged accidental meeting of theirs, she gave him half a smile and an abbreviated wave, then stepped through the open door into the car. The train wouldn’t depart for a few minutes yet, and there were still seats available. Cath took her favorite one—front row, forward-facing, by the window—and he sat beside her.
    “I thought you didn’t sit,” she said.
    The dimple appeared. “The way I’ve worked it out, this is the closest thing to a first date we’re going to get. On a date, I sit.”
    “This isn’t a date. It’s a commute.”
    “All right,” he said agreeably. “I’ll just enjoy the seat then.” He settled his briefcase between his feet, clasped his hands in his lap, and relaxed back, closing his eyes.
    Cath peered at him suspiciously, worrying the victory had come far too easily, but he stayed still, and after a while she started to feel rude for staring.