Chapter 11: Not Yet

"Do you have any idea what you're asking?" I said.

"Yes."

"Then stand there."

Mallory stood in front of me on the stone terrace, with the screen still glowing behind her.

Forty people were close enough to hear a whisper.

Willem let go of my hand and stepped back, and I felt the cold where it had been.

I picked a full champagne flute off the nearest table.

"Ten years," I said. "You sat next to me at my father's funeral and gave me your sleeve to cry on."

Mallory's chin trembled.

"You stood next to me at my engagement party, and you hugged him."

"You laughed at his jokes. You wore my cardigan to his mother's Christmas."

"Ginny..."

"Five hundred men, Mal. A new one every week, and I thought it was funny."

"I stood in photos with them. And the only man you couldn't leave alone was mine."

I threw the champagne.

It hit her in the face, and ran down her neck into the collar of the coat.

Someone gasped.

Mallory didn't flinch.

She didn't wipe her eyes.

She stood there dripping, with her hands at her sides, and she said, "More."

"What?"

"Say all of it. I can take it."

"Why would you do that to me?" My voice cracked wide open. "Of every man in the world, why him?"

She looked at me for a long moment, with champagne dripping off her chin.

Her mouth opened.

I watched her decide.

"Not yet," Mallory said.