“Hi!” Minami grinned. “How are you?”

It took a moment for me to calm down enough to say, “Good. You?”

“Good! I’m not going to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to give you this.” She held out a document folded in a plastic case. I accepted, but must have looked confused, because she explained, “It’s a contract that details your payment plan for the other half of your house. House? It was a house, right? I forget. Anyway, we had our lawyers get in touch with your . . . brother? I once again forget.”

My pulse fluttered in my throat. “What does it mean?”

“Well, nothing if you don’t sign it. But our legal team worked as a mediator, found estimators, and made sure you could reach an agreement for a payment plan. Same thing you’d have gotten around to doing eventually.”

“How?”

She shrugged, like real estate jurisprudence was as obscure as necromancy to her. “We have really good lawyers. And they’re on the payroll anyway. We might as well make use of them. It’ll save you time and money. And no, Eli didn’t tell me the story behind all this. I’m not all up in your business.”

“Did he ask you to do this?”

It was a stupid question, but Minami didn’t point it out. “He didn’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, or make you think that you owe him something or feel pressured into . . . dating him? Going with him to sex clubs? Not sure what you guys have been up to.”

I frowned, thinking that if Eli thought that I could be pressured into dating someone, perhaps he didn’t know me. Minami laughed. “What?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just, he said something like, ‘Not that she’s the type who can be pressured into doing anything she doesn’t want to,’ and your face tells me he probably was right, and . . .” Minami laughed some more, and waved her hand.

“I know what you did,” I said.

“What I did?”

“Harkness. The loan forgiveness. It was a trade for my patent, wasn’t it? You let Florence stay on as CEO. You gave up your advantage so that I could keep my patent.”

“Well, yes. But also . . .” Minami sighed. “We have the board. And we’re free of this horrible thing that happened ten years ago. We did get closure, and maybe it wasn’t the perfect circle we thought we’d be getting—more like a very squiggly line. We can all move on, and I don’t mind that, not at all.”

“Thank you, then.” I looked down at the contract, which was probably the only closure I’d get with Vince. A messy, squiggly line indeed. But maybe I could move on. “And thank you for this.”

“No problem. Just let the lawyers know if you’re okay with it and they’ll finalize it.”

I nodded, and closed my eyes, thinking about Eli asking his lawyers to do this. On the phone after hours, sitting at the table in his kitchen with Tiny curled at his feet. Saying, I have a . . . friend. Who might need help. Eli worrying. Eli caring enough to—

“You okay?” Minami asked.

“Yeah. Is he . . . ?”

“Eli?” Minami hesitated. “Not at his best, but he’ll be fine. I’m not telling you any of this to make you feel bad. I know what it’s like when someone you care about is in love with you and you can’t reciprocate the feeling. It’s messy, and you feel guilty, and—”

“That’s not it,” I blurted out. It was so uncharacteristic, this unsanctioned exit of words from my mouth, that I almost couldn’t recognize my voice. “That’s not what it is,” I added, outwardly calmer. The inside of me was burning with sudden, petrifying heat.

Minami’s head tilted. “You don’t feel guilty?”

I swallowed. “It’s not that I don’t . . . reciprocate.”

“Oh.” Minami looked around, befuddled. Stroked her flat stomach a few times. “Um. Do you want to talk about it?”

I could barely explain it to myself, the profound panic that had seized me when Eli had told me that he loved me. The immediate, soul-crushing certainty that if I let myself take what he was offering, I would undoubtedly disappoint him. And then, when he’d walked out of that conference room, the loss stabbing at my belly. I had majorly fucked up, and I knew that, but the hows and whys of atoning for it were something I was still in the process of analyzing. Meanwhile, the inside of me was tender and bruised like a pulled muscle. “Not really, no.”

Minami laughed, relieved. “Okay. Well, then . . .” She shrugged and reached for the driver’s door, but stopped mid-motion, as though a crucial piece of information had occurred to her. “I have no idea what is going on between you two. And I only know you very superficially, so I might be off the mark. But if what prompted you to break it off with Eli is not lack of interest, and what you’re worried about is more somewhere in the realm of . . .” She gestured inchoately, like a very enthusiastic painter. “You not being good enough for him, or not being sure that what you can offer him is worthwhile, or just being afraid that navigating a relationship with him might be too complicated, you might want to give him a call. We all have our baggage, and Eli’s not the type to hold anyone’s against them. Although, on my end, it would be better if it didn’t work out between you two.”

I blinked. “It would?”

“I love the name Rue. Big Hunger Games fan here.” She pointed at her abdomen. “If she’s a girl, and she is a girl, I’m seriously considering it.”

I glanced down at Minami’s belly. Was she . . . ?

“But if you end up in Eli’s life, it might just be too confusing, so . . .” Minami gave me a bright smile and got into her car, muttering, “Boy, am I selfless.” I watched her leave, waving weakly as she drove past me, and allowed her words to ring in my ears long into the night.

39

MEANT TO BE, OR SOME SHIT

ELI

The first thing he thought when he stepped inside the faintly lit, empty rink was: Fuck.

Because the rink was, in fact, not empty. Which meant that the trip had been a waste.

He sighed and stopped in the hallway, hanging his skates on his shoulder and checking the text Dave had sent earlier that day.

No practice today. Alec and I are out, but feel free to stop by the rink and let yourself in if you like.

Except that the lights under the ice were clearly on. The metallic scrape of blades against the ice was clearly audible. And then, once the hallway ended, he could clearly see her.

Her.

Gliding smoothly with the kind of ethereal elegance only people who’d lived half their lives on the ice could achieve. Circling the rink in a swooping loop. Coming to a fluid stop the second she spotted him and then just looking, eyes dark in the gentle light, soft curves turned into sharp angles by the vertical shadows, pitch-black clothes a dramatic contrast with her pale face.

Eli could recognize a setup when he saw one, just like he knew the value of a strategic retreat. And yet he closed the distance between them until all that separated them was a thin plexiglass barrier. And the million things he needed from her that she might never be willing to give.

“What is this?” he asked. He hadn’t heard from her in over a week, and her silence following their last conversation had been answer enough. It wasn’t her fault if she didn’t want what he wanted—in fact, it was part of what he’d fallen for, the messiness, the unflinching honesty. But he did need some space to come to terms with what the rest of his life would look like.

“Rue,” he asked again, a touch impatient. “What’s going on?”

“Would you like to skate?”

His eyebrow rose, but her expression remained sphinxlike. “Did Dave put you up to this?”