I've been watching you since last night, Malcolm. Not the fiance performance. You The way you track her in a room. The way you answer questions about her. The way you looked at her when she laughed at dinner.
She paused. I've never seen anyone look at Vanessa like that. Like she's like she's a person first and everything else second. He held the silence for a moment then said, "What are you asking me, Clare? I'm asking you if she knows."
Her voice had dropped lost the breezy surface layer because Vanessa has spent her whole life being seen as the CEO, the high achiever, the intimidating one. Trent saw her that way. My parents love her, but even they see the achievement first and the person second sometimes. She looked at him steadily. And you walk in after 18 months of working with her, and you look at her like she's the most interesting person in any room.
And I need to know if she knows that because my sister does not have a history of letting herself be seen. Malcolm was quiet. Something moved through him. The particular discomfort of being seen clearly by someone you've only just met, which is somehow more exposing than being seen by someone who knows you. We have an understanding, he said carefully about how this weekend I don't care about the weekend, Clare said firmly but not unkindly.
I care about after I care about my sister who has spent 11 months being treated like a walking wound by everyone who loves her who brought you here because she trusted you with something she doesn't give anyone her real situation. And I want to know that you're not going to walk back into Monday morning and pretend this was just a professional favor. He looked at her. She looked back. The wedding noise continued at a remove.
Someone testing a sound system somewhere. A car arriving normal Saturday afternoon. Sounds of a celebration assembling itself. I don't make promises I haven't thought through, he said finally. That's not an answer.
It's the most honest answer I have right now. She studied him for the long moment. Then something in her expression relaxed. Not satisfied exactly, but settled. Okay, she said.
Okay, that's actually that's more honest than I expected. What did you expect? Reassurance, she said. Something smooth. Trent would have given me something smooth.
She turned back to the railing. The fact that you didn't is either a very good sign or a very bad one, and I genuinely can't tell which. Join the club," Malcolm said. She laughed, surprised, genuine, a sound that carried her sister's quality of realness without her sister's restraint. "I like you," she said.
"I didn't want to because I didn't know what to make of you, and Vanessa hasn't told us anything real in months, and I've been protective. But I like you." "I like you, too," he said. "And he meant it." She pushed off from the railing.