Iron Cast(109)

She pressed her shoulder blades against the wall beside him, letting her fingertips rest against the icy brick. Wordlessly, he offered her the cigarette. She shook her head.

“You catch the show?” she asked when she could no longer stand the silence.

“No.”

“Still got a problem with what we do here?”

“My mother bought a new table. She needed help moving it up the stairs.”

A laugh escaped Corinne at the absurd simplicity of the statement. She jammed her knuckles against her lips and glanced sideways at Gabriel. He was smiling. She liked the way it softened the angular planes of his face. She found herself wishing he smiled more often.

“Ada invited me,” he said, staring hard at the cigarette between his fingers. A thin rivulet of smoke drifted skyward, melting into the sunlight above the alley.

“Ada thinks she’s awfully clever.”

“She also told me what you did for me—what you told the councilman.”

Corinne swallowed. She could feel him looking at her now, and even though she steeled herself, the dark of his eyes still made her heart skip a beat when she met his gaze.

“You helped us save Saint,” she said. “I thought that was worth a token effort on my part. If they deport you anyway, don’t expect me to do anything about it.”

She was pleased at how resolved she sounded. She almost believed herself.

Gabriel looked straight ahead again and took a pull from his cigarette. When he released the smoke, it sounded like a sigh. Corinne drove her fingertips into the wall, letting the brick abrade her skin. She told herself to go back inside, but of course she didn’t listen.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

As usual, Gabriel didn’t reply, with assent or otherwise. He did look at her again.

“That first show you attended,” she said. “What memory did you have while Ada was playing? What made you leave?”

He had told her it was the happiness. When Ada played childhood bliss, Corinne remembered the hot summer days on the beach on Martha’s Vineyard and the cold winter nights in her grandfather’s study, listening to him tell the stories of his travels.

A frown etched itself between Gabriel’s eyebrows. “My seventh birthday,” he said. “My mother made an apple cake. My father brought home petushok candies—lollipops shaped like roosters. They were my favorite when I was a kid.”

Gabriel seemed to have forgotten about the lit cigarette, which was burning perilously close to his fingers. He was staring ahead, his eyes locked on the middle distance.

“It was a couple of weeks before my father was killed, but in my head it all blurs together. Somehow while my mother is lighting the candles, she’s sobbing about my father’s death. And while my father and I eat the candy, the kitchen is filled with the mourners from his funeral.”

His hand jerked, and he dropped the cigarette. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, turning his face upward to catch a ray of the sun. Corinne looked down to see that their little fingers were almost touching on the wall. She lifted her hand, hesitated, then fit her fingers between his. His knuckles were cool and chapped beneath her palm. When she looked up again, his eyes were on her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I could show you how to resist hemopaths—if you decided to stay, that is.”

“Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” he asked.

“Did you mean what you said at the warehouse?” The question escaped her before she could second-guess it. “About me?”

His lips quirked.

“Shouldn’t you know? You’re the one who told me I was a bad liar.”

“I lied.”

“I meant what I said.”

More than anything, she wanted to kiss him. He was so bright and beautiful and vulnerable in the daylight. But she couldn’t let herself. No matter the reasons, he had sold them out to the HPA and now Madeline was dead. She couldn’t forgive that, not yet. Maybe not ever.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, though she wasn’t sure why. She pulled her hand away from his. “You should go home. It’s getting late—or early, I guess.”

He kept her gaze for a long second, then nodded and straightened. “If you need me—”

“I know where you live now,” Corinne said.

Gabriel smiled barely and nodded.

“Hold on,” Corinne said. She reached into the breast pocket of his coat, where she knew he kept his matchbook. “I do need these.”

For the space of a breath, while they were inches apart and her hand was so close to his heart she could feel it beating, she thought about forgetting everything that was between them and telling him the truth. That she couldn’t remember what her life was like before he had come into it, and she was having a hard time imagining what it would be like if he were gone.

She curled her fingers around the matchbook and stepped back.

“You’re not armed,” she said, trying to clear her head.

“I am, actually. Switched to an iron-free piece.”

“Damn, you’re getting more inconspicuous.”

“Thanks.”

Corinne closed her fist over the matches and opened the back door. The familiar scent of old wood and alcohol reached her nose. She breathed it in with relish.