There are gaps…

Holy shit. 

She’s at home. This bodyguard is going to complete the shift change at her home.

I take a sharp breath and meet Samuel’s eyes, catching the spark of death beneath his cataracts as he watches me come to this conclusion. Happy birthday, his little smile says.

A warm hand on my elbow pulls my attention away.

“Are you okay?” Kaplan asks, bending his head to catch my eyes. “Headache?”

“Just for a second,” I lie, bringing my hand to my temple as I realize how it must have appeared as I shut myself off from the world. “Gone now.”

Kaplan removes his hand but keeps his gaze on me, even after I give what I hope is a reassuring smile. I glance at Samuel to gauge his reaction but he’s watching the server as a bell sounds from the kitchen and she heads in that direction. “Excuse me,” he says, rising from the table and steadying himself with his cane. He shuffles away in the direction of the bodyguard and I watch his slow yet expertly timed progression until my chair slides to the right with a lurch.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask as Kaplan tugs again, drawing me to the corner of the table and almost to his side. He looks deep into my eyes, undeterred by the lethal glare I try to give him.

“Checking.”

“For?”

“Damage,” he replies. He reaches up, his thumb grazing my cheekbone where the bruise has now faded into a faint yellow smudge. My breath hitches. A tingle of warmth hums down my spine with his gentle caress.

“Damage,” I repeat and he nods. “What kind of damage?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t have a chance to thoroughly check you over recently.”

I snort a laugh and he smiles. “I think you checked enough,” I say.

“No. I definitely did not.”

Heat erupts in Kaplan’s eyes and is answered by a coiling ache deep in my belly. I want to press my cheek into the warmth of his hand as his fingers trace the curve of my face. I want to leave and go somewhere, anywhere, where we can be alone, where I can rip this jacket off his shoulders and crush his lips to mine.

But I tear my eyes away and they stop at Samuel. He’s arrived next to the bodyguard’s table where the server has just delivered his food. The server motions toward the bathroom with a warm smile. Samuel shifts the hooked handle of his cane to his forearm as the bodyguard and server are distracted by something he says. He lets a handkerchief fall from his hand. As the bodyguard bends to pick it up, Samuel pulls something from his interior pocket. And when the man hands Samuel the handkerchief, Samuel pats his wrist in a grandfatherly gesture, right at the buttons.

He’s deposited a GPS tracker.

“Come out with me tonight,” Kaplan says, pulling my attention back to our table as Samuel heads in the direction of the bathrooms. “I didn’t realize it was your birthday. I’ll make you dinner.”

“I thought you were trying not to break the rules, Dr. Kaplan.”

“I think I’ve already broken those ones. No harm breaking them again,” he says. I give him a dark, skeptical look, but he’s undeterred. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll cook something you hate, and I’ll be the worst company.”

“You already are.”

“Good, then I’m halfway there.” Kaplan lays his hand next to mine, his palm facing upward in an invitation. I trace the creases in his skin, wondering what a palmist would claim they mean and which line I would fit on, if any. “Come have a terrible time with me.”

I smile, and truthfully, as much as I’m excited to edge closer to Cynthia Nordstrom’s private life, I’m a little disappointed to decline. “I can’t, I’m sorry. Samuel and I have a birthday tradition. I’ll be away for the weekend.”

Kaplan’s fingers curl around mine. “It’s okay. Another time. It’ll give me the opportunity to prepare something truly awful.”

As though it’s the easiest thing in the world, Kaplan leans forward and kisses my cheek, and then slides my chair back into place just before Samuel rejoins the table. The old man says nothing, shows nothing. But I know he sees it all, even what I try to hide.

When our meal is done, Kaplan takes us all back to the university in time for his afternoon classes. I drive Samuel to the house and we pack, then pick up his bag from Cedar Ridge on the way to his lakefront cabin at Lake McDonald where our usual birthday rituals play out across the weekend. A swim in the cold water, in which he times me against the distance buoys he placed in the lake years ago. A present, always a weapon, this time a custom compound bow with a package of targets that I set up on the pebbled beach near the dock. And stalking prey, both of us hovering over our laptops as we work out where Cynthia Nordstrom lives. The signal from the GPS drops repeatedly at 656 Toyah Avenue, the address where there just happens to be a luxury condo high-rise.

And though I stay focused on every task, never wavering in my commitment to my exercise or work or mapping Cynthia’s movements, I feel Samuel’s scrutinous eye on me, always. But he only gives one warning, just before bed on Sunday night. Be careful, Bria. We are not like everyone else. We don’t feel what they feel, and it is deadly to try. 

I make my promise in reply, the one I always keep. I will not fail. And yet, for the first time, I wonder what l really mean before I shove that thought aside.

Monday morning, I arrive at the Psychology building before David and Tida, when the halls are still quiet and the campus holds on to a sacred kind of solitude. The music on my headphones muffles the echo of my footsteps as I climb the weathered stairs to the fourth floor. The automatic lights snap to life when I step into the corridor and unlock my office door. I stop dead when I flick on the overhead light and it illuminates a box on my desk, covered in wrapping paper of a familiar pattern. Tweed.

It takes me a moment to realize I’m smiling.

I set my bag down on my chair and my keys and coffee on my shelves, then I turn to the box, lifting a sealed card from the top.

Happy Birthday. It reminded me of you. I hope you despise it.

There’s no signature to accompany the clean, unfussy penmanship, but of course it doesn’t need one. I set the card aside and lift the lid of the box.

I pull out a bonsai cherry tree in full bloom, the delicate pink flowers a beautiful contrast to the dark wood of the miniature trunk and the carefully trimmed branches. A strong scent of cherries infuses the air around me as I set the ceramic pot on my desk and run my fingers across the feathery blooms. I lean closer to smell them but the scent of the flowers is faint. But the box? That’s strong. I flip over the lid to smell the fragrance, and find there’s a note written on the interior.

Unscented next time.

My smile grows sore within my cheeks as I set up my laptop and open my Outlook.

Dear Dr. Kaplan,

Kudos, you’ve outdone yourself. I detest it. Especially the box. 

My unkindest regards,

Bria 

I press send and run my finger over the mottled trunk and silken petals.

Warmth blossoms in my chest. At first, it seems just as delicate as one of those little pink flowers. I could pick it apart, or starve it of light. But I don’t. I just let it be.

And to my surprise, as the day unfurls, through classes and meetings, through my solitary dinner with Kane at my feet, all the way to when I close my eyes, it stays rooted behind my bones.

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18

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ELI

“I asked Samuel Brooks’s niece if she had money to go to Utah. And I fucked her. In the library. And on my desk. And in a classroom.”