Page 63 of The Perfect Deception

“She took me skat­ing ev­ery Sat­ur­day. Af­ter­wards, we’d go out for fresh donuts at this lo­cal bak­ery down the street. It’s no longer there.”

The “nei­ther is she” re­mained un­spo­ken, but Dina heard it loud and clear. “How old were you when she left?”

He glided with her and from the cor­ner of her eye, she could see him swal­low. “Seven.”

She squeezed his hand, want­ing to say some­thing com­fort­ing. But what did you say to some­one whose mother had left him?

“For a long time, I blamed my­self,” he said. “Now I mostly blame my fa­ther.”

His “mostly” com­ment told her more than any­thing else he’d said, be­cause no mat­ter how much blame he’d shifted to his fa­ther, Dina would bet a part of him blamed him­self. Sud­denly, his ques­tions about why Dina stayed with him made sense. Her throat hurt from the urge to cry. In­stead, she squeezed his hand again and rested her head on his shoul­der for a brief mo­ment be­fore con­cen­trat­ing on re­main­ing up­right.

“My dad used to take me to the li­brary ev­ery Fri­day af­ter­noon,” she said. “He’d come home early for Shab­bat and we’d go bor­row enough books to last me through the week­end.”

“So that’s where you get your love of read­ing.”

She nod­ded. “To this day, my arms ache from car­ry­ing too many books ev­ery time I go into the chil­dren’s sec­tion.”

“Do your par­ents still live around here?”

She shook her head. “No, they moved to St. Louis when I was in col­lege. My dad’s a pro­fes­sor at a uni­ver­sity there.”

“And are they as smart as you?”

She glanced side­ways at him, but he wasn’t mak­ing fun of her. “My dad is a physics pro­fes­sor, my mom is a lin­guist and my two broth­ers are doc­tors.”

He turned so he was skat­ing back­wards, fac­ing her. “Yeah, but are they as smart as you?”

It was the first time some­one had heard her fam­ily’s pro­fes­sions and didn’t make some com­ment about her only be­ing a li­brar­ian. It was the first time, for that mat­ter, that a man her own age val­ued her in­tel­li­gence. She swal­lowed. Her heart rate sped up and the tears she’d swal­lowed be­fore prick­led be­hind her eye­lids. She blinked quickly be­fore an­swer­ing. “We’re all pretty smart.”

With a nod, he re­sumed skat­ing next to her. “It’s hard liv­ing up to fam­ily ex­pec­ta­tions, real or imag­i­nary,” he said.

She never thought any­one would un­der­stand what it was like to live in the shadow of her bril­liant fam­ily, but Adam seemed to im­me­di­ately. A knot some­where in­side, one she’d al­ways felt and had al­ways picked at, loos­ened. This man, this amaz­ing, com­pli­cated man…

“I’m thirsty,” Adam said. “Want to stop for a drink?”

It took her a few sec­onds to process what he said and by the time she did, they were al­ready skat­ing to­ward the exit. They hob­bled over to the re­fresh­ment stand, where Adam or­dered two hot choco­lates and two bot­tled wa­ters. Find­ing an empty ta­ble in the back, they sat and peo­ple-watched.

Or rather, Adam peo­ple-watched.

Dina Adam-watched.

His in­nate un­der­stand­ing of her, and his demon­stra­tion of vul­ner­a­bil­ity, made him even more at­trac­tive to her. He tipped his head back and gulped most of the wa­ter in the wa­ter bot­tle. His Adam’s ap­ple bobbed and the light shone on his skin. His hand wrapped around the bot­tle, the same hand that cupped her jaw when he kissed her, or her neck when he drew her close. His lips pursed around the mouth of the bot­tle, wa­ter moist­en­ing them, and she licked her own lips with de­sire. He re­turned the bot­tle to the ta­ble and the clap of the bot­tle against the Formica made her jump.

She drank her own wa­ter, slak­ing her phys­i­cal thirst, but leav­ing her sex­ual de­sire un­ful­filled. Her hot choco­late was steam­ing and she played with the cup. She didn’t need any­thing to make her hot­ter.

“Not a fan?” Adam asked. He nod­ded to­ward her cup.

“Oh, it’s hot, I’m let­ting it cool a lit­tle.” And me.

“What do you think their story is?” he asked, in­di­cat­ing a cou­ple two ta­bles over. They were both on their phones, look­ing to ev­ery­one else as if they weren’t pay­ing any at­ten­tion to each other.

“Brother and sis­ter,” Dina said.

Adam stared at them a mo­ment longer. “Nope. I think they’re send­ing each other dirty texts.”

Dina choked on the hot choco­late she’d just sipped and her eyes wa­tered. Adam leaned over to help her and she waved him away. Her throat stung from the heat of the liq­uid, but she got her­self un­der con­trol and wiped her mouth with a nap­kin be­fore speak­ing.

“That was un­fair.”