The Regulars by Georgia Clark

Author:Georgia Clark [Clark, Georgia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471154577
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

37.

Mark was a good boy.

Mark paid his taxes on time, helped women carry strollers up the subway steps, and cleared away the dirty dishes without being asked. He’d had exactly two one-night stands, both of whom he gave his number to: they were the ones who never called.

Which partly explained Willow. Willow was not a good girl. Not in that way. She could tell Mark’s parents didn’t approve of her. They couldn’t define Willow like they could define Mark, and it made them nervous. On the few occasions they’d gotten together for what always seemed like an interminably long meal, no one could say the right thing: Willow didn’t respond to being mothered and Mark became overly—painfully—aware of his parents’ parochial taste. Mark and Willow worked best on their own: a cozy cave of just us. Mark once told her she was a road trip without a map. For Mark, who never drove so much as a few blocks without GPS, she could see how that would be thrilling.

She didn’t have a road map now.

As usual.

He buzzed her up without asking who it was. When he opened the door, she could tell he’d been expecting Willow.

“Caroline?” Mark threw his gaze up, then down the empty corridor, as if expecting someone to jump and yell, “Gotcha!”

Her words came in a nervous rush. “You left this. At the bar. It had your address on the inside.” She held out the small Moleskine he kept tucked in the side pocket of his bag.

“Oh.” He flipped the notebook open. His mathematically neat handwriting confirmed its identity.

She was wearing the same dress she’d been wearing when she saw him outside his office in Soho: a long floaty thing covered in tiny yellow flowers, something from the back of her closet, something pre-Mark. It was hard to remember pre-Mark. Wasn’t it? “You probably shouldn’t write your address in things like that. Maybe some psycho could use it to track you down.”

He blinked at her from behind his glasses. “Maybe one has.”

Willow felt her mouth become small.

“I’m kidding,” he said quickly.

“I’m not a psycho.” She backed up a step.

“I know, I know, I was kissing, kidding. I was kidding.” His face was going red. “God, please, come in, Caroline.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. I was just—doing literally nothing, so I’m happy for the company. Please.”

He stepped aside. As she passed, she heard him breathing in the smell of her hair and her mouth relaxed, unfurling into a smile.

“This is really nice.” She dropped her bag on the couch and looked around the familiar apartment. “Great that it’s south facing.”

Mark masked a double take. “That’s one of the reasons I took it. People don’t seem to realize how important that is.”

“You save so much on heating if you can rely on the winter sun, right?” Another thing Willow had embarrassed herself over: Who knew the sun could affect heating costs? She took a seat on the end of the sofa, kicked off her flip-flops, and tucked her legs under herself comfortably.

“Can I get you something to drink? I don’t have any wine .

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