Page 87 of Level With Me
We discussed Cass’s dad, too—how Griff had tracked him down via his cell phone records. He’d been in Borneo on some kind of jungle trek. We talked about Persephone Books and my favorite castle in Ireland, and before we knew it, the waiter was dropping off our dessert—a perfect-looking crème brûlée.
“Apparently, my family has a huge amount of Irish heritage,” she said. “If you hadn’t noticed by our name.”
I smiled, enjoying her slipping a spoonful of sweet cream into her mouth.
“Also,”—she pointed the spoon at me—“our family is 25% more likely to have neanderthal heritage than other respondents.”
I nearly choked on my soda water. “Is that why you’re so short?”
She laughed, covering her mouth, which was full of sweet cream and candy shell.
My stomach jumped. I’d been walking a line all evening between trying to push off the crush of pain of knowing I was leaving and wanting to take her back to the hotel to fuck her silly—or make love to her slowly. Or both. Spending the entire night in bed with her felt like a fitting end.
Right now, as she licked a smear of cream from her upper lip, desire was winning.
“Find any secret relatives?” I asked. Distant second cousins sounded sufficiently unsexy enough to distract me, though I didn’t remove my hand from her thigh under the table. I’d been holding her knee protectively all night, wanting to be touching her, knowing that when we walked outside, we wouldn’t be able to hold hands on the small chance someone might see us. It was a minuscule chance, but it was still there, and the last thing we needed was to blow this on our very last day after managing to stay under the radar at Cass’s place of work.
“No one very close.” Cass took another bite and managed to get the whole spoonful in her mouth this time.
Even that made my dick twitch once more.
I picked up my spoon.
“But apparently you can check back anytime to see if anyone else has registered. So maybe it’s not yet on the secret relatives?” She laughed.
I’d never seen her so lighthearted. Was this how she was in the face of the end? Or was this what she was like when she was truly happy? Either way, it hurt my heart.
“How about you?” she asked. “You said you did one a while ago?”
“Yeah. I took one for the health markers.” I’d done it to see if I was at risk of Alzheimer’s, like my mom. The test had confirmed what the doctors had said—triple the normal risk, which wasn’t huge in the first place. It didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t mention any of that—I didn’t want to drag her down. “I got a slight probability of detached earlobes, 0.7% North African heritage, and discovered a whole branch of our family tree I don’t know that lives in my hometown, apparently.”
She scraped at the bowl, her spoon clinking against mine. “Did you know I’ve never been to Seattle?”
“Really?”
“Really. And it’s where two of my favorite rom-coms were set:10 Things I Hate About You,and of course the iconicSleepless in Seattle.”
I paused with my spoon by my mouth. “Wait, you like rom-coms?”
“You know that!”
“I don’t.”
For a moment, her expression was confused. Then her brows straightened. “Right. I told you that when you were… what was it…shit-faced?”
I frowned. “That’s not fair then.”
“I know. You don’t remember. But you said—” She paused, her tone softening. “You said your mom reads romance novels, and I said she has good taste, and I confessed to you my love of rom-com movies.”
“What did I say to that?”
“You asked me if Top Gun was a rom-com.”
For the second time that night, I nearly choked. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
I looked at Cassandra, at the wave of her hair touching her chin.Kelly McGillis.That’s why I’d said it.
