Claim of Innocence. Laura Caldwell
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boyfriend.”
I nodded.
He laughed shortly, gruffly.
The waiter still stood at attention. “Sir…?” he asked Sam.
Sam looked up at him. “Patrón tequila. On the rocks.”
“When did you start drinking that?”
“Just now.” He smiled a sardonic grin. “You inspired me to change.”
A few moments of silence followed. They felt like a settling of sorts, a shifting into us with a recognition that us wasn’t the same. But somehow, it felt okay. It felt normal.
“I don’t want to screw things up with you and your boyfriend,” Sam said. I could tell by the way he pronounced boyfriend, in sort of a lighthearted, almost dismissive way, that he didn’t think much of my new relationship.
“Very little could disturb our relationship,” I said, giving a little more weight to Theo and me than might be accurate.
Sam looked at me, blinking a few times.
When I said nothing, he spoke. “I’m just gonna put it out there. Alyssa and I decided to move out of the city. And that was okay with me, because…” He drifted off. Then he slowly nodded. “It was okay because sometimes it’s hard to be here without you. Because Chicago is you. And me.”
He looked at me, and this time I didn’t hesitate to save him. I nodded back. I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes Chicago without him was not exactly the city I knew before. It was a little more exciting. A little more dangerous. Less consoling than it used to be.
“So anyway,” Sam continued, “we decided to move. Then somehow we started looking for engagement rings. But we couldn’t figure out what we wanted. Everything she sort-of liked, I didn’t. Everything I kinda liked, she didn’t.”
I nodded at him to continue.
“I just kept thinking about our engagement ring,” he said, swiftly unloosening the bolts of my heart with the words. Our engagement ring.
“Remember?” he said.
“Yeah, of course. You saw it in that jeweler’s window.”
“I couldn’t find anything better. Not even close.” He stared at me with a heaviness in his eyes, which momentarily made me sad for him. For me. For us both.
But then I thought of something. “You found a ring eventually, right? Because you’re engaged.”
“Yeah. Sapphire cut.” Sam rattled off a few more specifics that made it clear that a hell of a lot more money was spent on Alyssa’s ring than mine. But the truth was, I couldn’t have cared less.
Sam spoke up. Just one raw sentence that filled me with warmth. “It doesn’t feel the same with her.”
We nodded in silence. Kept nodding. And nodding.
Finally, I spoke. “A minute ago, you said I inspired you.”
Sam nodded.
“Meaning?”
“I want to take a page out of your book. I want to be able to start all over like you did, with grace.”
The emotional warmth I’d felt at his statement—It doesn’t feel the same with her—turned into an angry heat. I could feel my face turning pink, then ruddy, then redder still. Instead of being embarrassed, I let it lift my anger up until I could really feel it. “You think I started over with grace? Do you think I could possibly handle you disappearing two months before our wedding gracefully? I know by taking off you did what you felt you had to. You were fulfilling the dying wishes of a man you thought of as a father. You made a promise. But don’t forget that you’d also made me a promise when we got engaged, and do not assume I handled it well. Do not assume that, Sam.”
I took a gulp of the cocktail, the taste reminding me vaguely of kissing Theo after he’d been out with friends. I wanted that right now. I did not want to be assumed— assumedly fine, assumedly good-natured, assumedly graceful, assumedly a roll-with-the-punches kind of girl. I wanted to be consumed. And so I stood from the table, tossed back another gulp and I left.
10
S am walked up the flight of steps to his apartment. His legs felt heavy, the way they did when he’d been playing a lot of rugby. Izzy’s anger and her abrupt exit had shocked him. And yet it had made him love her more, respect her more.
When he reached his apartment and opened the door, Alyssa was there. He knew she would be, and yet he felt surprised. He always did when he saw her, as if he couldn’t force himself to remember on a regular basis that they were together.
He kissed the top of her blonde head. Felt a wave of guilt. But it wasn’t just Izzy that was causing the guilt. There was more. More that he hadn’t told either of them. Hadn’t told anyone.
The decision he had to make was technically easy. It could be communicated quickly, by phone or email. But the ramifications were bigger. Much, much bigger. Life-changing bigger. He couldn’t believe he was considering it. Would never have believed this of himself.
Which scared him. And thrilled him. He hated himself a little. But he couldn’t deny the thrill.
11
W hen I got to my condo—the third floor of an old three flat in Old Town—I stomped up the stairs and slammed the door. Silence answered. A minute later, when Theo buzzed and I hit the intercom, I heard him make a growling sound, telling me he was in the same mood as I was. Or at least the same ballpark. I hit the buzzer, felt lighter already.
I heard his heavy footfalls on the stairs. With each one—thump, thump, thump—my stomach clenched and unclenched in anticipation. And then there he was, opening the door, standing there for a second, his six-foot-two body taking up most of the frame. He grinned, looking at me, and still he just stood there. He wore a powder-blue T-shirt that had some kind of white lettering writhing across it. The shirt had been washed so many times that it looked incredibly soft. It also couldn’t hide his body underneath—the chest, the rippling stomach muscles. He took a step toward me and I flushed, every cell of my body alive and dancing with a desire that ramped up every time I saw him.
My reaction to Theo was so intense each time I saw him that I had begun to wonder if I was… God, I could hardly think it. Well, here was the thing—I had been starting to wonder if I was falling in love with him. Because it seemed nothing else could explain the constant ratcheting up of longing and emotions.
Yet it was hard to judge whether Theo was in the same place. And now there was something else. Now there was Sam.
Looking up at Theo, imagining lifting up that blue T-shirt, I reminded myself that whether Theo and I had perfect timing or not, it didn’t matter. Because here he was. Now. And where was Sam? With his fiancée. I felt rage again. My face flushed as an ever-so-slight tremor ran through my body. Was the tremor caused by the thought of Sam with Alyssa or the sight of Theo? No idea.
“Girl,” Theo said simply, what he always said. “What time do we have to be at your mom’s?”
His large body moved toward me, his chin-length hair, shiny and brown, swinging with the movement.
I banished Sam from my thoughts. I grabbed Theo’s T-shirt and used it to pull him around, shoving him into a seated position on the couch. I climbed on top of him, my legs on either side of his. “We’ve got time.”
12
T he first time he had gone to see the killing, the first time he had walked in that house, there was no emotion. That was what he noticed. The people there nodded at him. As if it were simple.
Everyone knew who he was. They seemed to expect him to know where to go, too. When he stood and looked around, feeling helpless—an unfamiliar emotion—someone pointed.