Chapter Six

It had been days since Petra heard from Emmett. Not that she was counting, of course. Except that, you know, she was. He'd mentioned his friend the librarian might have some reading for them to do over the weekend, but the weekend passed, and then the start of the next week, and still, she didn't hear from him. And the longing in her belly just to see him, not to mention to have the freedom to put her hands on him, grew stronger every day until she was sleeping wrapped around a pillow, pretending it was him. At this rate, she thought when she woke up on the fourth morning to find that she'd climbed on top of the pillow in her sleep, she was going to become one of those people who had person-sized pillows with characters printed on them, just to have something she could more easily pretend was actually the man himself, if only to shut up the way her wolf was howling for his touch more insistently each night.

And not just the wolf in her, but the woman longed for him.

Even if it was just another no-touch coffee not-a-date, where she might be able to ask him some more questions about himself and actually get to know the man somewhat. There couldn't be any harm in befriending him, at least while this bond was fighting to drag them as close together as possible, right? As long as they both held on to their rational minds and kept their instincts at bay, there was no reason she couldn't use being drawn to him so strongly as a chance to make a new friend. He seemed… nice. Interesting, in a way that made her want to know him better. Or was that just the bond talking, trying to force her into falling in love with him by finding ways to make them spend more time together? In truth, if it was, this one would be a good one—for someone like Petra, who based much of her attraction to someone on finding them intellectually appealing, making her want to get to know Emmett intellectually would probably be a profound step toward making her interested in him.

Or maybe this wasn't the bond at all. Maybe she was just a single woman, talking to a good-looking, single man who was openly interested in getting to know her, and her instincts decided that she might like to get to know him better too. Would that be so wrong?

She pushed the thought aside. It was too complicated, trying to work out which of her thoughts about Emmett were her own and which were from the bond. Easier to just not think about him at all—as if that were possible, which her brain was insisting it absolutely was not. Something in her mind found a way to bring him into her thoughts what felt like every two minutes, doing it so subtly that she often didn't realize she'd fallen into thinking about him—again—until she'd been doing it for a while. And then she'd have to start the process all over again.

On Wednesday, she got a text from him. She was sitting at her desk at work, ploughing through paperwork, when her phone buzzed. She tried not to let her hopes leap that it might be him, because she'd been doing that for days now and each time, she'd been disappointed. Still, despite her iron grip on her anticipation, a tendril of it grew like creeping ivy through her chest until she finally gave in and looked at the message.

It was him. Gods, it was him. The iron grip loosened the moment she saw his name on the screen, and the tether that seemed to be connecting them yanked almost painfully with the drive to be close to him.

Are you free tonight? he wrote. Raj said he's found a bunch of books that mention mating bonds, and he's set them aside for us at the library.

She tried to resist the rush of pleasure that flowed through her at even that small communication from him. Her heart seemed to be pounding his name with its racing beat. Emmett, Emmett, Emmett. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, and pooling between her thighs, just at the suggestion of his name.

A second message followed the first, coming through while she was trying to control her body's response to the mere idea of him.

We could grab dinner beforehand, make sure we know exactly what we're looking for. The library is open late on Wednesday, so that's not an issue.

More time with him. Before she could think through what she was doing, she sent back an agreement.

Sounds good! Just let me know where and when to meet you.

Was this some kind of date? Why had she agreed to spend more time with this man she was trying to detach herself from? With an internal sigh, she admitted the truth to herself, she did want to spend more time with him. Even though it was going to be yet another test of her will, the likes of which she'd never known before she'd scented the man, she wanted to spend time close to him, getting to know him. If nothing else, she wanted to be his friend, even if they were working toward breaking this bond between them.

Would Emmett still want to spend time with her after they found a way to sever the bond? She knew from his mentioning it that he had two best friends, both of whom were male, but he hadn't spoken of any close female friends. Maybe the only time he spent time with women was in an intimate sense. Maybe he would want nothing to do with her once he wasn't overtaken by a magical drive to bed and claim her.

That's if he was feeling the same drive that she was. On one level, she hoped he was—it would mean that she wasn't alone in what she was feeling, the sensations and emotions that were trying to drag her toward him and had pushed her to straddle his lap and claim his mouth the moment she saw him in the coffee shop. On another, it would be so much easier if he wasn't—if this was nothing but a dim attraction to him based on scent, and he was only vaguely interested in her, and then only sexually. Though given the way he'd talked about it, that almost definitely wasn't the case. She had to assume that he was feeling most of the same things she was, which, she thought, meant they were both doing a good job with their extreme level of self-restraint in each other's presence.

But why would he want to put himself through more of that, going out to dinner with her and being around her, taking in her scent, if it only made it harder for him the same way it was testing her? Maybe… maybe it wasn't as intense for him. Maybe he was used to restraining himself around women he found attractive, and this was just another mark on the tally as he used skills he'd long since perfected.

Though, with his history, the idea that he had much practice restraining himself from following up on attraction to women did not seem like a likely suggestion.

Maybe he wants to get to know you too, a small voice in the back of her mind suggested. Maybe he just wants time to talk to you, to get to know you, before you're spending an evening with your noses in books to work out how to get away from each other. The thought brought an unexpected swelling of hope into her chest—that maybe he might like her, or at least want to get to know her, beyond the attraction this bond was forcing on them.

She finished work for the day with significantly less efficiency than she had started it and tried to tell herself she wasn't rushing home to have time to find something to wear to meet Emmett at whatever restaurant he chose. Even she didn't really believe herself. She was going on a, well, not really a date—in fact, quite purposely not a date—with Emmett O'Neill, and she wanted to look her best, though obviously in a way that was suitable to spend an evening in the library, checking out the books Emmett's friend had collected for them.

She refused to think about why she might be trying to dress to impress him.

She picked a black and white dress that Francesca had told her accentuated her curves and wore black boots that came up to just below her knees. She left her hair down, put on just enough makeup that it was visible that she was wearing it, and leaped for the phone when it buzzed with the name and address of a restaurant. He followed it up with a second text.

If you like Korean barbecue? Emmett asked.

Petra didn't even think through her response. That sounds great.

His reply came through almost immediately. Does getting there in about an hour work? It was the earliest reservation they had.

Petra looked at the text for a long moment before typing, I'll see you there.

She added a smiley face, just to make it friendly, she told herself, then sat down hard. It would take her about half an hour to get to the restaurant, according to her map app, and she needed to leave enough time to find parking. That still left her with maybe twenty minutes. Well, it might not be super appropriate, dressed like this, but she'd been meaning to vacuum for days without getting to it. Why not get it done now?

She dug the vacuum out of the cupboard where it lived and made a start on the front room. She had all the lights on, which was fortunate, because otherwise she might not have seen the black car parked across the road from her house.

She wasn't positive it was the same car she'd thought might be following her a few days before, but it definitely looked similar. It was too far away for her to be able to make out the driver, but if it was the same car, then this was a concerning place to see it.

Why would anyone be following her? She worked at the Department of Youth and Community, for gods' sake—it was hardly Homeland Security. What could they hope to gain by following her to her home?

Wondering if she was doing something very stupid, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the front veranda. The car immediately drove away. Did they know she'd noticed them? She'd initially told herself that the car might belong to someone who lived around here, though she didn't remember seeing it before, but unless it was the vehicle of the people across the road, who she was pretty sure drove a minivan to fit all five of their children, there was no reason for it to be parked outside her house.

It was a mystery, and Petra did not like mysteries. She was going to have to be careful about making sure her doors were locked whether or not she was in the house, she thought—there wasn't really anything she could report to the police, other than the fact that the car had been around her house when it shouldn't have been, so the only thing she could do right now was be careful and hope that whoever had been staking out her house wasn't comfortable with breaking and entering.

She finished the vacuuming and collected her bag and keys. Scoping out the area in front of her house revealed no suspicious black cars, so she moved quickly to get into her own car and drove to the restaurant with one eye on the rear-view mirror, just in case they appeared behind her in the traffic.

Driving with only half of one's attention on the road proved to not be the wisest thing she'd ever done, and after a few close calls, she settled for checking the mirror every couple of turns, just to make sure she couldn't see anyone following her. She arrived at the restaurant without incident and luckily found a park close by—right between the restaurant Emmett had texted to her and the large building that advertised itself with a large neon sign as the Mystic City Community Library. Then she went to have dinner with the man she was trying to convince herself that she was still—maybe—attempting to avoid getting closer to.

Emmett was, once again, already there when she arrived, looking at a book that he tucked away when she stepped through the door, as though he'd had one eye on it to see when she arrived. She tried not to let the sight of him affect her, but it did. Oh, it did. Immediately, she wanted to climb on top of him where he sat, worship his mouth with her own, and let her hands map out his body. She wanted to rip open his button-down shirt and trace the swells of his muscles with her hands, then her tongue. She wanted to get on her knees between his thick thighs and torture him with how slowly she removed his clothes, then reward him for his patience by introducing every inch of his cock to her mouth.

She realized she'd frozen in the doorway and swiped a hand over her face, hoping the urges riding her body were not immediately visible in her expression. She could feel the blush reddening her cheeks and tried to breathe deeply as she walked over to the table, hoping that would calm her racing pulse.

"Do you make a habit of getting places early?" she asked.

"Only when it matters," Emmett said, then quickly signaled the waitress. "Pull up a chair. We can barbecue."

"Who doesn't like Korean barbecue?" Petra asked, echoing the question she'd written in her text, and waited as he ordered. "This isn't going to be like the overwhelming mass of pastries, is it?"

Emmett laughed. "Honestly, there's a chance. I tend to go for a bit of everything. Do you want a drink?"

They ordered drinks, and then they were just looking at each other over the hotplate in the middle of the table. "Emmett," Petra said, and the same time as he said, "Petra," and they both stopped.

"You go," Emmett said.

"I'm sorry," Petra blurted, feeling that her emotions were written completely on her face if he only bothered to interpret what he was seeing. "About the café. What I said the other day. I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't want to hurt you—"

"Petra, it's okay," Emmett said softly, his gaze still trapping hers. "I understand. I'm… not the kind of man you would look for. I don't really fit the parameters of the man you were thinking you'd end up with, do I?"

"Emmett," Petra said again, but once more he interrupted her.

"I've done some things I'm not proud of, Petra, but I'm never going to pretend not to be the man I am. I've been with a lot of women; that's hardly a secret. I fall in love far too easily, and too often Leo has to talk our way out of the fight that my foolishness would have gotten us into otherwise. But that's not what this is, Petra. I've never been this way with anyone else. I've never—I never even imagined that I would get to feel like this. The longing that I feel for you—it surpasses everything else I've ever felt. But Petra, I'm not some nineteenth-century viscount who's going to force you into a marriage you don't want. If you truly don't want this bond, then I'll work just as hard as you to find a way to break it."

For a long moment, they just looked at each other, and Petra had never wanted to kiss him more. The longing for him in her blood seemed to have been magnified by about two hundred per cent by his blatant honesty. How could this man be becoming more and more attractive, the further she got toward finding a way to free herself from their connection?

She looked at him for a long moment. "I guess… I guess that's good to know. I mean, you're the one organizing all of this research, so I assumed you were on my side when it came to, you know… finding a way out of this bond." She took a deep breath without thinking and her lungs were flooded with the erotic perfection of his scent. She tamped down on the immediate urges of her body and focused instead on what they were meant to be doing tonight: finding a way to break this bond, which hopefully would stop him smelling like paradise such that she was flooded with desire every time she breathed near him.

"Petra, I'm never going to trap you into a mate bond you don't want," he said as she was trying to convince her body not to leap on top of him at the nearest opportunity. "That wouldn't be fair to either of us. If you want out of this bond, I'll help you find a way." He looked up suddenly, and his eyes met hers. "If you wanted it, that would be a different question entirely, and one completely inappropriate to answer in public," he added, and she felt herself smiling at his humour even as her body went into near meltdown at the idea that he might have the same longing for her that she had for him. He'd said he wouldn't force her into this bond—that was what she needed, reinforcement of her initial perception that he was a good man who wouldn't make her do something she didn't want. Emmett was a werewolf, like her, but he wasn't ruled by his wolf side, and though he'd made it clear that he was physically attracted to her, the fact that he was willing to help her find a way to break their bond… well, she didn't want to admit it, but it warmed her to him even further than his frank honesty already had.

Remember who he is, she reminded herself. Remember why he's not the man you want to be bonded to. But still, her body yearned for his in a way that she'd never experienced before. She was picturing climbing past the table into his lap, the hotplate on its surface be damned, and finding some way to pleasure his body with hers, even as she planned ways to sever their bond. She'd never wanted someone so badly, never longed for the opportunity to open her body to his and allow him to take his pleasure from her. If he'd mounted her right now, at this table, gods knew she probably wouldn't have protested, just reveled in the fact that she was able to bring him some kind of gratification. For all her talk of wanting their bond severed, if he had claimed her with his body right now, in the middle of this restaurant, her worry would only have been exhibitionism of it, not that he was making a declaration of partnership in the language of wolves that couldn't be undone.

"Well, now that's sorted," he said with what sounded like half a laugh after the silence of her just looking at him, trying to keep her mind and body under control, extended into the realm of awkward. "How was your day?"

"Busy," Petra managed to say, snapping back into consciousness of the present moment. "I'm working to include some of the groups Della flagged as ones she wanted to be involved in the afterschool programs we're setting up. Some need some time before they'll trust a member of the government, and some, like the vampires, seem sort of split down the middle as to whether it's worth their time to get involved. Which I understand, since it's harder to include the younger members of their community, even if we hold the groups indoors—we'd need to find places with easy access out of the sunlight, and all the windows blacked out, and that's not necessarily easy or particularly welcoming when the purpose of the project is trying to integrate both the young humans and supernaturals into one group."

"Are they being difficult?" Emmett asked. "The vampires?"

"Some of them," Petra admitted. "Some, like Valerie and Beau, have been attending the information sessions Della's organized, and seem to be keen to be involved. Some of them, particularly the older ones, see this as kind of an attempt on their independence. Vampires have existed in a sort of underground in Mystic City for so long, no pun intended. They see it as the government trying to get into their community and reshape it, when all we want is to help the young ones in all the communities finish school while showing them that even though they're from different species, all of the different residents of Mystic City are still people, and they don't need to be scared of each other. It's a lot easier to justify hating or hurting someone if you can view them as a creature, rather than a person. We're trying to make it so that the youth of Mystic City see each other as different in some ways, but mostly the same, so that it's harder for them to justify hatred or exclusion based on species."

"It sounds like a pretty intense project," Emmett said.

"It is," Petra admitted with a grin. "It's mostly Della's baby—she's the one who wrote the original proposal, I've just been managing the peripheral stuff to make it feasible. But while she's off sick, I seem to be heading the whole thing. Some of the groups aren't thrilled about the change in the person with whom they communicate, either, but I think I'm slowly bringing most of them around."

"I think Della and Leo met at one of those meetings," Emmett said.

"From what she told me, that's right," Petra said. "It didn't sound like your pack was particularly interested in getting involved, though."

"Not under our old Alpha," Emmett admitted. "James had a pretty old-fashioned 'militant independence' approach to maintaining the territory boundaries."

"Militant sounds right, though I'm not sure about his take on the boundaries," Petra said, raising one eyebrow and thinking of the way the pack's former Alpha had tried to invade Apex River territory and incorporate it into his pack's already much larger domain. If it hadn't been for the assistance of the witches—Della in particular, after Petra had asked for her help—their smaller pack would have been overwhelmed by the might of the much larger one. "Is everyone in your pack trained fighters?"

"It's only mandatory for the younger ones," Emmett said, "just to make sure everyone knows how to manage their wolf side appropriately, and we don't put any wild fighters into the world. But most of the Blue Crescent wolves keep attending the sessions at least until they're in their thirties. It's just kind of how it's done. Why, is Apex River different?"

"Sort of. We have mandatory self-defense classes for the young wolves, but not all of them take to it. Some of us keep it up as we get older—I've been going to weekly fighting classes for as long as I can remember—but the focus is usually mostly on defense."

"Sometimes offense is the best defense," Emmett said with a grin. "The one I teach is mostly about self-defense too, but I try to get some offensive tips in there, make it a more rounded learning experience. Raj and Leo do something similar, I think."

"Will Leo keep teaching fighting classes, now he's Alpha?" Petra asked.

"I assume so," Emmett said. "He always said it was a bad idea for James to withdraw from the rest of the pack the way he did. James… well, he kind of put himself on a pedestal and made us worship at its base if we wanted anything to do with him. Leo saw it more than me or Raj, being Beta and all. I can't imagine how much of a pain that would have been, being at the beck and call of an Alpha like James." His laugh came out as more of a snort. "Actually, I don't have to imagine, because Leo complained about it all those years."

A smile spread across Petra's face. "You're very close to them. Do you think it'll be strange, having one of your best friends be the Alpha?"

"For me? Nah. I've been used to Leo having a position of power within the pack for a long time. For him? Probably. Once he detaches himself from Della's side, there's going to be a lot of work to be done to bring Blue Crescent up to being the kind of pack we want it to be."

"We? Is he going to make you Beta, then?"

Emmett shrugged. "Maybe. I think it'll probably be one of us—Raj or me—since we've been running things while Leo has been caught up with making sure that every one of Della's needs has been instantly met. I don't think either of us really cares who he picks. To be honest, Raj might be a bit miffed on one level if it's him, because all the work that's involved in being Beta, especially in a pack that's trying to reinvent itself, would really cut into the hours he'd get to spend at the library, and he loves his job."

"And you don't? Love your job, I mean?"

"I sort of fell into it, to be honest. I was the one who always organized things the three of us were going to do—usually things that got us in trouble—and I started doing it on a larger scale for people without realizing it was an actual job. Someone told me Samson had an opening, and I applied for it not really thinking I'd get the job—my only experience was lived, and I didn't have any industry references. But the interview was less about what I'd done in the past that would qualify me, and more of them asking me how I'd go about organizing a specific event, and they liked the way I did it, so they hired me. It's been a few years now, and no one's fired me yet, so they must still like the way I do things." He sent her a grin that pushed her heart rate into overdrive. She tried not to let the response of her body show on her face. "It's a good job, they pay me very well and I get to do something I'm good at, so I have no complaints. The hours can be a little unpredictable, depending on the event we're organizing, but that's never been an issue I couldn't handle."

"Would it be difficult, balancing that with being Beta, if Leo chooses you?"

"The big guys in the company have always been pretty flexible when I needed time to do pack-related things—one of them is a werewolf, from the Astral Vision pack, so he understands that it's not always by choice. I'm sure if I sat down with them and explained it, they'd let me switch to a more part-time position, take on smaller roles in putting events together, or just working as backup to other organizers."

"You've really put some thought into this," Petra noted.

"I don't like to go into things blind," Emmett admitted. "I'm a bit of a planner by nature, so I prefer to have at least some of the possible outcomes thought through before I start in on a course of action. Sober, at least," he added with a laugh.

"I didn't know that about you," she said softly. She shook the thought from her head and focused on the moment again, sending him a smile as she served herself some of the food they had been barely paying any attention to.

"What about you?" Emmett asked. "I know you do a lot for your Alpha, even though you're not Beta. Are you two close?" There seemed to be a slight edge to the question, though he appeared to be focusing on the food between them.

"I've been friends with Simon since before he was Alpha," Petra explained. "When he ascended, things changed a bit for the pack. But there was already a Beta in place, and some of the pack were a little hesitant about having an Alpha so young. Plus, our Beta, Laurel, is great, so it would be foolish to replace her. He still comes to me for assistance sometimes, if she's busy or something, and because we get along so well." A memory rose to the surface of her mind suddenly, and she found herself huffing out a laugh. "He called me his Gamma wolf once—you know, comes after Beta."

Emmett smiled at the revelation. "I didn't meet your Beta when Della was in hospital and you and Simon came to see Leo," he pointed out, and Petra's mind was immediately catapulted back to their interaction outside Della's hospital room, the way he'd pinned her to the wall and pressed his body up against hers, the dirty words he'd whispered in her ear. She couldn't control the shudder that passed through her at the memory and wondered if he'd noticed it.

"She was handling things back in pack territory," she explained. "They're good like that, Simon and Laurel, managing the sharing of power."

"A good example to work toward, then, for Leo and whoever his Beta is," Emmett said, selecting a cut of meat she was pretty sure they'd vastly overcooked while they weren't paying attention to the hotplate.

"I don't know how different it would be for you or how much more challenging," Petra was quick to add, "since Blue Crescent territory is so much bigger than Apex River. Plus, a new Alpha and a new Beta in one go—I don't envy you that."

"Yeah, I didn't realize that managing the entire territory in his absence as he takes care of Della was what I was signing up for when I befriended Leo all those years ago," Emmett admitted with a grin. "I'm sure we'll be fine, though. It all comes out in the wash, right?"

"Right," Petra said, though she wasn't sure she entirely believed it. Still, she had to admire his positive attitude. She scrambled for some way she could change the subject and stop him from needing to think about pack management on a night off. "So… you two have been friends for a long time?"

"The three of us, actually," Emmett replied, "Leo, Raj and me. We grew up together. Leo took off to explore the world for a few years there, but you can understand why he would, considering he knew he'd effectively be tied to the pack territory as Beta for the rest of his life. And fortunately, we have all these wonderful methods of internet communication for when you want to talk to your friend in Monticello and you don't have a witch on hand, so it was pretty easy to keep in touch. Man, what I wouldn't have given to go with him."

"Why didn't you?" Petra asked. "I mean, it doesn't sound like there was a role tying you to pack territory."

"Couldn't afford it," Emmett said without a hint of embarrassment. "I grew up with my grandparents, and they weren't exactly wolves of means. It wasn't until I moved out of the house where I grew up that I discovered it's normal to have more than a day's worth of food in the house—we were that kind of poor. The pack takes care of its own, though, so it's not like I ever went without anything essential."

"Why did you grow up with your grandparents?" Petra asked, leaving a wide berth around the potentially awkward discussion of finances.

"My parents had me really young," Emmett explained after he finished his mouthful. "Neither of them was ready for a pup, and my grandma and grandpa were still pretty young themselves, so they took me once I was old enough to be away from my mother. They're great people. I couldn't have asked for anyone better to raise me, though I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm not turning out too much like my dad."

"Your dad?" Petra asked.

"Yeah, it's Dad's parents I grew up with. My dad is by all accounts, something of a… difficult guy." He shot Petra a smile which looked forced. "He takes on a lot of harebrained business schemes, raises funds for them, and then loses people's money and skips town before they can ask for it back. I haven't seen him in years, to tell you the truth. He's just not a reliable person, and that's the opposite of who I'm aiming to be."

Reliable might not have previously been the word that Petra used, based on his reputation, to describe the man before her, but getting to know him a little better, understanding that, like her, he was someone who liked to go into things with comprehensive knowledge of however the situation could turn out… in truth, it was kind of making her question the impression she'd had of him.

"And you, you've got one sister, have I remembered that right?" he asked, clearly finished with discussing his past.

"Yep, just the two of us. Pretty stock-standard childhood if you exclude Francesca wolfing out at family gatherings whenever she wanted to get out of a conversation. My parents thought she couldn't control it and almost put her in therapy."

"Did you grow up in Apex River?" Emmett asked.

"Sure did. I did a secondment to Tirawi City for six months for work at one point, and I went away for university, but other than that I've hardly left Mystic City." She looked down at her hands on the table, wondering why she'd said that. "That probably makes me sound really boring."

Before she could flinch, one of Emmett's hands was covering hers. "No more boring than me," he said gently. "I'm pretty much the same, minus the university. Besides, there are wolves in Blue Crescent who I'm pretty sure have only ever left pack territory to run in the forest. You're doing better than them. At least you know people who aren't just werewolves in the same pack as you."

She smiled up at him, pleased to see that the smile on his own face was more realistic than the one he'd worn when talking about his father. "Thanks, Emmett," she said quietly.

"For what?"

"For trying to make me feel better. It worked," she added.

"Then my work here is done," he said, his grin turning cheeky, and gave the closest approximation of an elaborate bow that he could do while seated.

"So, you talked to Raj about finding some books on the mating bond?" Petra asked after they'd both eaten a lot of Korean barbecue.

"Yes, and he says he's found piles of them talking about the bond, but nothing so far on breaking it. He's been setting them all aside so we can go through them just in case he's missed something. So, we've got stacks of books to go through—we might need to come back again another night, to be honest. The library closes tonight at about eleven if I remember correctly, so we don't have unlimited time."

"I don't mind coming back another night," Petra said, then wondered what had possessed her to say that. "It'd be good to have all the information possible, so we should go through all the books available, I think. Just in case your friend did miss something," she added.

"We could do dinner beforehand again," Emmett offered, for once sounding slightly unsure of himself.

"I'd like that," Petra heard herself say before she could consider the wisdom of the statement, but when she forced herself to look up at him, it was to see a look of what might have been relief on his face. He reached for the food between them, and she wondered whether choosing Korean barbecue for their dinner tonight and the activity it provided was partly as a way to make sure neither of them felt like there was nothing to add but empty silence when they discussed finding out how to break this bond.

And why she felt so empty when she thought about it.