Extraits

"You didn't ask. You said 'marry me'. It wasn't a question."

Well, you're going to be my wife, aren't you?"

She hesitates.

Hesitates.

"You're going to be my wife," I say, not phrasing it as a question this time for my own sanity. "What's mine is yours. Which, for the record, is also a Plautus quote: for what is yours is mine, and mine is all yours."

She's quiet for a few minutes before clearing her throat. "I am"

"Are what?"

"Going to be your wife," she says, "someday."

"Someday soon," I amend.

"Not that soon."

"Soon enough."

"Whatever."

"Whatever," I mimic. She's starting to love that damn word. "Speaking of, have you chosen a date? Have you thought about any of it?"

"No."

This time there's no hesitation.

Infuriating woman.

"No," I echo.

"It's not that I don't want to," she says. "I think I do."

"You think you do."

She groans loudly. "Can you not do that right now?"

"Can I not do what?"

"That! Repeating everything I say in that tone you use."

"Repeating everything," I say, "in the tone I use?"

"Naz!"

She forces her way up front with ease, standing there for a moment before closing her eyes and tossing the coin in. She reopens her eyes then, staring down at the water for a few seconds, before slipping back out of the crowd to rejoin me.

"Did you wish for your immortality?"

She laughs. "Nope."

"What did you wish for?"

She shakes her head, her hair swishing back and forth. "Not telling."

"Why?"

"Because then it won't come true."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone. Those are the rules."

"Ah, come on," I say, reaching for her, pulling her to me. "You can tell me. I'm an exception."

"What makes you so special?"

"Because I just am," I say, grinning when she rolls her eyes. I reach up, cupping her chin, brushing my thumb across her lips. "And because I'll make your every wish come true. So you can tell me, because I'll do it for you. Whatever it is. It's yours."

It's beautiful," she says quietly, staring down at the exposed underground tunnels. "I wish I could've been here back then and seen it all in tact."

I can't help myself. I laugh at the reverence in her voice. It's not mocking, although the look she casts me makes me think it sounds that way. "Yeah, that would be nice, I guess, if you like that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Mass slaughtering."

Her eyes widen.

I laugh again.

So innocent.

"What did you think the Romans used this place for, Karissa?"

"I don't know," she says. "Plays, and shows, or sports, or like, festivals."

"Oh, they were festivals, all right," I say. "Just the kind that involved a lot of gore."

"I mean, I knew there were gladiators," she says as I step closer, pausing beside her at the railing. "I knew people watched them fight to the death sometimes. But they were warriors."

So naïve.

"Back then, they'd execute thousands of people in one day," I say. "And they certainly weren't humane about it. There would be so much blood they'd have to put down a layer of sand on the floor to soak it up. They'd unleash lions on unarmed men, and fifty thousand people would sit in this place and watch them be ripped apart, piece-by-piece. You wouldn't have lasted a minute in one of those seats, Karissa. You couldn't even watch the boxing match in Vegas without shielding your eyes when somebody got hit."

She looks torn between fascination and revulsion. "We just waited in line for half an hour to stand inside what's practically an execution chamber? Why?"

My anger still hasn't waned.

I turn, prepared to walk away, when she lets out an exasperated sigh. "How long are you going to stay pissed?"

"Who says I'm pissed?"

"Me," she says. "I say you're pissed."

You're a member of a social club."

"Yes."

"Is that a euphemism? Like a gentleman's club?"

"No, no strippers. No women at all, generally, although sometimes they bend the rules. It's more of an exclusive hangout that you need membership to get into."

"And what do you do there?"

"Socialize," I say. "Drink."

Conduct business.

Plot schemes.

"So it's a special kind of club," she reiterates. "Where you drink and hang out with other men like you."

"Essentially."

"You know that sounds a lot like a gay bar, right?"

I memorized every curve and crevice, every scar and scratch marking her skin. It's unforgettable, the dimples on the small of her back, the ridges of her ribcage when she's stretched out straight, the strain of her fingers when they clutch onto me, the curl of her toes when pleasure overwhelms her. She's perfectly imperfect, down to the scattering of freckles along her back and dotting her flushed cheeks.

Everything about her is beautiful to me.

Even when she's scowling, when she's angry and full of hate. She's beautiful when she cries, when she's in the throes of grief. She's beautiful when she smiles, when she laughs at me. But she's the most beautiful when she's doing nothing. When she thinks nobody's looking, when she thinks she's alone. Her walls are down, her defenses off, and the real Karissa shines through. She's pensive and passive, a calm breeze in the middle of a storm that somehow pacifies me. She gets lost somewhere up in that head of hers, and as much as I hate when she overthinks things, she's goddamn beautiful when she does it.

If I were hard pressed to explain why I fell in love with her, that would be my answer. Because she's beautiful. And I don't mean it in a superficial way. You're not going to find her on the cover of a magazine. She's more the kind you find at a museum, on a painting or in a piece of literature. Her beauty is in her soul.

She has enough of that for both of us.