Beautiful Stranger

bewildering. This was all a load of bullshit, and I could tell she knew that. She looked away, arms crossed over her midsection, shoulders slumped. The truth was, I didn’t care who saw me with Sara. Five years out from the Cecily drama and I realized you couldn’t help what anyone said anymore. No way could Sara understand that.
    I walked over to a willow tree several feet away, ducking under the curtain of leaves, and sat down with my back to the trunk. “I don’t think this is as big an issue as you’re making it out to be.”
    She stepped closer but remained standing. “My point is that there needs to be some level of discretion. With or without a potential conflict, I don’t want Bennett to think I sleep with clients as a point of habit.”
    “Fair enough, but I don’t think Bennett has a lot of room to criticize.”
    I watched her legs move closer, bend, and then she was sitting next to me on the warm grass. “There wasn’t any reason for you to be there. I wasn’t expecting to see you and it threw me.”
    “Bloody hell, Sara. I wasn’t going to try to finger you beneath the table, I just wanted to come along and get achance to see you, say hello. You could be more adaptable, you know.”
    She laughed a little, and then stopped. But then a few seconds passed and I realized she’d started to laugh again: silent at first, and then she was holding her stomach, bent in half, practically howling with laughter.
    “You think?” she managed.
    I had no idea what I had said that triggered her reaction, so I just sat still, imagining that less was probably more when sitting beside a woman who might or might not really be losing her kit.
    She calmed, wiping her eyes and sighing. “Yes, I could be more adaptable. Having sex with a guy in a club, in a banquet hall, a warehouse, a library—”
    “Oi, Sara. I didn’t mean—”
    She held up her hand. “No, it’s just a good lesson to me. Stretching myself is a constant process. As soon as I stop and consider how well I’m handling one thing, I see how rigid I am about something else.”
    I pulled up a long blade of grass, considering this. “I should have texted.”
    “Probably.”
    “But you know, I would have been thrilled to see you randomly show up at a meeting at Stella & Sumner.”
    “You also want to go out to dinner with me, and have me sleep in your mother’s guest room, and probably even make cookies with me or something.”
    “Because I don’t care if we’re seen together,” I said, growing frustrated. “Why do you?”
    “Because people will get invested,” she said, turning to look at me. “People will discuss it, make a narrative out of it. They’ll speculate, look into who we are, what we both want. Relationships in the public eye don’t do well and it will follow you forever if you admit you care.”
    “Right,” I said, nodding once.
    I listened to the wind blowing past us, muted by the curtain of leaves. I liked being in this little cave of quiet, hidden from foot traffic, birds, anything else that might want to witness our conversation and my silent meltdown. Too many things were bubbling up inside me: the realization that I wanted Sara, that I’d always wanted Sara—from the first day I saw her. I also accepted the truth that I’d expected Sara to eventually hope for more, and that I would be the one setting limits, not her.
    “Max, I’m kind of a mess,” she said quietly.
    “Will you at least tell me why?”
    “Not today,” she said, looking up at the branches overhead.
    “I’m happy with what we’re doing, but it’s not always easy to be kept at such arm’s length.”
    She laughed a little, humorlessly. “I know.” And then she leaned over, and pressed her mouth against mine.
    I expected a tiny peck, a discreet public kiss to wipe the slate clean after I’d admitted I should have given her a heads-up and she admitted she’d overreacted. But it turnedinto something wholly deeper: her hands on either side of my face, mouth open and hungry for more, and finally her climbing over me, straddling my thighs.
    “Why are you so nice?” she whispered, and then kissed me, muting any possible reply.
    But this one stuck. It felt too big to disregard and pave over with my hand in her underwear or a grind under a tree. I pulled back. “I’m nice because I’m genuinely fond of you.”
    “Do you ever lie?” she asked, eyes searching mine.
    “Of course I do. But why would I want to be dishonest with you