It felt like a challenge. A frisson of excitement shot up my spine. “You don’t stand a chance.”
He shook his head and I threw the dice again.
I started counting his smiles—in my tally a little flicker at the corner of those lips counted—and I swore when we got to six, I was going to pluck up the courage to say something. It was my lucky number of the night, after all.
“Kings Cross station,” I said. “I’ll buy it because it’s right by my favorite station, St. Pancreas.”
He smiled. “What are you going to pay for it with? A kidney?”
He seemed pretty happy with himself, but I didn’t get the joke. “What did I say?”
“I’m being cruel by laughing. It’s kind of cute.”
Gabriel was handsome-grumpy after three nights without sleep. I could testify to that because he’d worked overnight for three nights in a row the week before Bethany’s accident. But when he smiled? He was like a goddamned movie star. How was this man a lawyer? He should be plastered on a billion teenage girls’ bedroom walls. Hell, I wasn’t past sneaking a snap on my camera phone and pinning it up over my bed.
“As much as I kinda like that you find me cute, can you clue me in on the joke?”
He held my gaze like he was deciding whether or not to say something. Was he going to deny he called me cute? Tell me he didn’t mean it like that. Or maybe he was deciding whether he should kiss me. I’d vote for C.
“You added an e,” he said finally.
“I did what now?”
“Pancras. Two syllables. Not pancreas, like the organ.”
I started to laugh. “Oh my God, I had no idea.” I shrugged. “And I always so liked that it was named after a body part. But it was worth making a fool of myself to see you smile.”
He stared at me for one second, then two. “You couldn’t be a fool if you tried.” His tone had turned from teasing to low and serious. “You saved my daughter’s life.” He glanced down at the board and mumbled to himself.
I reached over and grabbed his wrist. “She’s fine, you know.”
“If you hadn’t been there,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before he reopened them. “If you hadn’t been watching like you were.”
“But I was, Gabriel. You can’t torture yourself with what ifs.”
“She’s never going swimming again,” he said with a resolute shake of his head.
“You know that’s not the right decision to make. Give it some time, but she needs to go back in the water.”
“I don’t want anything happening to her again. And the easiest way to ensure that happens is not to let her swim.”
“You’re a clever man, Gabriel, and we both know that’s bullshit. She’ll be safer as a strong and confident swimmer.”
He kinda growled at me. At least he didn’t bite.
“You can’t wrap her in cotton wool all the time,” I continued. “You have to let her be a four-year-old. You don’t want to keep her home like there’s something wrong with her when quite the opposite is true.”
“I should have been there,” he said.
“And that’s another thing. You need to go back to work.”
“What are you talking about? I have been working.”
“But you need to go back to the office. One day she’ll leave home and go off to college and if she’s not developed her independence by then, what will you do?”
“Easy,” he said, as if I’d been peppering him with trivia questions and just picked his specialty. “Never let her go to university.”
I laughed. “You’re completely ridiculous.”
He sat back against the chair and regarded me as if he were examining a rare object. “I can’t remember ever being called ridiculous before.”
My heartbeat thundered and a siren of panic filled my ears. I’d taken it too far. I’d offended him. “Oh God,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry, I just meant—”
He smiled, almost as if he had been embarrassed to admit it. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want to get myself fired here but I’m telling you, I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I took it as one. Well, not that I’m ridiculous—that’s just patently not true. But the fact that you’d call me so. I appreciate it.”
“You like people calling you names?”
“Not people. You. And not names—just the truth.”
I didn’t know what to say. The way he said it suggested that I was . . . special somehow. “You like me telling you the truth?”
He nodded, looking pained by the confession.
“I’m sorry she got into the accident, Gabriel. I should have told you sooner that I didn’t like the setup there.”
“It’s not your fault. You weren’t in charge. And if you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t gone in after her . . .” He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply as if he were trying to bear the pain of even the thought that something worse would have happened.