American Queen

“…and my granddaughter Greer.”

I lifted my gaze, realizing Grandpa Leo had been talking this whole time, introducing the others at the table to Ash and Merlin. I suddenly wished I was in something less girlish than this pink knee-length dress with its neatly folded bow at the back. I wished I had put my hair up or reapplied my lip-gloss, or anything to feel fresher and prettier and more than I was in that moment. Instead, I felt incredibly naked and young as I met Ash’s stare across the table.

He’d frozen in place—just for a second—his eyes flaring into a green fire before settling back into their usual emerald. Then he gave me a genuinely happy smile and said in that easy, confident voice, “Greer. So good to see you again.”

Again.

He remembers.

I took a breath and smiled too, a smile that felt too shaky and too excited and too hopeful. “Yes. So nice to see you too.”

And then I lifted my wineglass to my lips, hoping no one saw the trembling of my hand as I did.

The lunch went on as normal—Merlin was having a party tonight for his fortieth birthday, and everyone at the table was going—and the conversation turned back to politics, although with Merlin there, the conversation finally drifted away from the minutia of elections and numbers and into slightly more interesting territory. Merlin was asking my grandfather if he’d ever support a third party presidential candidate, and the table stirred with the natural antipathy establishment politicians have to such talk.

But even that couldn’t hold my attention when Ash was so near. He talked very little, choosing mostly to listen, but when he did speak, it was so concisely elegant and perceptive that even these people, who spent their lives talking over everyone else, had trouble finding a response that matched his insight.

Every word he said, I stored away, as if his opinions on the viability of a third-party candidate were secret revelations about himself. I watched his every movement from under my eyelashes, the way his hand looked as he twirled the stem of his wineglass between his fingers, the way he held himself perfectly still as he was listening to someone else—perfectly still except for the occasional nod of understanding—a stillness not learned in a courtroom or a legislator’s chamber, but in battle. A stillness that could have been curled over a sniper’s rifle, it was so deliberate and immovable. A stillness that accounted for the movements of wind and the fluttering of leaves and careful intakes of breath. A stillness that was patient.

Predatory.

If Ash ever became a politician, he would slice through these people like a stick slices through weeds. They’d be bent and broken before they ever saw it coming.

I didn’t have that stillness. Perception, yes. Patience, no.

And so it was agony to be so close to Ash, able to soak up every lift of his shoulders, every flex of those fingers, every rich, deep word, and to know that there was nothing to be done about the tempest inside me. There was no outlet for this restless ache, this almost-pain, this fidgety, giddy feeling twisting inside my chest. At any moment, my control would break, and it would all come spilling out of me.

Do you really remember me? I would blurt, leaning forward. Do you remember our kiss? I do. I remember how you took care of my cut, I remember how you told me not to move, I remember how you pinned me against the wall. I dreamed of it for years after; I still dream of it. I thought I didn’t care, I tried to shove down that girl, I tried to be someone else, but now that I’m with you, I don’t think I can. I don’t think I can want anyone else and I don’t think I want to be any other version of myself than the girl you boss around.

I can bleed for you again.

Let me bleed for you again.

And then, as if he’d heard me, as if my thoughts had reached out to him, he turned his head and met my stare head-on. His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the wineglass, and I imagined them tightening in my hair, fisting my white-gold locks and snapping my head backward so he could bite my throat.

I caught my breath at the thought, tearing my gaze away from his. I had to go. I couldn’t be wet and panting and miserable at this table—not with these people, not with my grandfather, not with the source of my torture so breathtakingly close.

I leaned into my grandfather. “Do you mind if I go poke around the museum a bit?” I asked quietly.

“Yes, sweetie. I imagine you must be bored to death. I’ll text you when we’re done.”

Gratitude flooded through me, and I gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Grandpa.”

I pushed my chair back and excused myself with a hurried murmur, careful not to make eye contact with Ash as I did. Even so, I could feel his eyes on my back as I left, and I wanted to look back so badly, I wanted to see for sure if he was watching me leave, if he was watching my legs or my hips or my hair, but I didn’t. I strode quickly out of the restaurant, only breathing once I was out the doors and on my way to the museum proper. There was something inside my body that kicked and struggled at being separated from Ash, just as there was something that kicked and struggled while in his unbearable presence.

As I paid for a museum ticket and took a small folded brochure with a gallery map, I ran back through everything I had done and said. Had I humiliated myself in any way? Had I looked too much at him? Spoken too breathlessly? I couldn’t bear anyone at that table thinking I was ridiculous—especially Merlin, who already seemed to dislike me for some unaccountable reason—but I didn’t want Ash in particular to think I was besotted. No doubt he would find it as ridiculous as I found it myself.