He picked Ava up from his mother's at 8:30. His daughter was wearing shin guards already because she had decided that putting them on early was a strategy and also because she was eight years old and shin guards made her feel like a professional. "You look tired, Daddy," she said, climbing into the backseat of the car. ""I was up late cleaning." "You're always up late cleaning." "That's because people are always making messes."" Ava considered this with the seriousness that she brought to most observations about the world.
She was a quiet, not shy, but deliberate, like she was measuring her words before she released them. People who didn't know her well sometimes thought she was withdrawn. People who knew her understood that she was simply paying very close attention. "Is Miss Clare going to be at my game?" Ava asked.
Something in Malcolm's chest tightened. ""I don't know. Maybe. She said she'd try." "I know. She always tries," Ava said matter-of-factly.
Like this was simply a fact about the world she had cataloged alongside other reliable facts like the sky being blue or the sun rising in the east. She almost always makes it. Malcolm kept his eyes on the road. Clare was already in the corner booth when he walked into Dela's. She had a mug of coffee in front of her and her hands wrapped around it.
And when he slid in across from her, she looked up and met his eyes immediately. No evasion, no pretending to study the menu because she knew the menu. They both knew the menu. They had ordered the same things from this menu for years. Dela appeared before either of them could speak.
Poured Malcolm's coffee, said the usual to both of them, and was gone again in under 30 seconds. The morning light came through the window at a low slanted angle and caught the side of Clare's face. She had her natural hair today. No pressed out style, just her natural curls pulled back loosely, the way she only wore it when she wasn't presenting to the board or going to a formal event. Malcolm had always thought she looked more like herself this way.
He had never said that out loud. "Okay," he said. "I'll go first. What happened last night was completely my fault. I wasn't paying attention to where I was standing and when you started to fall, I just "Malcolm, I'm serious."
I should have been more careful about "Malcolm." Her voice was quiet, but it stopped him. I didn't ask you here to hear you apologize again. He closed his mouth. Clare turned her coffee mug slowly in her hands, staring at it for a moment like she was organizing something internally.
Then she looked up at him directly. "The kiss didn't scare me because it was accidental," she said. He waited. "It scared me because I didn't want it to feel accidental." The morning noise of the diner continued around them, a cook calling out an order, the bell above the door as someone came in from the street, the low murmur of conversations at other tables.
Malcolm felt none of it. He felt like the room had gotten very small and very still. "Clare—" "Let me finish." She wasn't flustered. She wasn't performing.