A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

of the New York Standard’s fact-checkers would head into the back alley, to the unmarked entrance I’d described, the door with no security beyond a code that I remembered. The freight elevator was too noisy, so they’d have to take the stairs. I walked him through the layout of the roof, the path they could use to avoid being noticed by anyone. If they stayed on the other side of the trellises, they’d be able to see what was happening through the gaps in the plants, but we’d all be so blinded by the fire, so caught up in the smoke and the ritual, that they’d remain undetected for as long as they needed to confirm what they needed to confirm. They could take some blurry video footage and then get out of there.

Margot and I had agreed that we wouldn’t make our stand until after the worship had already begun. Let everyone else get a little blissed out, let Caroline loosen up, remind her how good she felt when she gave in to the magic. Miles and the fact-checker just had to get in before that so that they could see the height of the ritual.

“So if they catch me,” he said, “do you think they’ll prosecute me for trespassing, or go ahead and tear us all limb from limb?”

“Hard to tell, honestly.”

“You nervous?” he asked.

“Oh, terrified,” I said. “You?”

“Yeah, kind of. I feel like I’m in a movie.”

We smiled shakily at each other. “I wrote the article,” I said, indicating my laptop. “Turns out it all came pretty easily.”

“Hell yeah, you did,” he said, a smile growing wide. “Can I get a sneak peek?”

“Fine. But just the first sentence,” I said. I opened my computer, cleared my throat, and read the words I’d spent two months preparing to write, words into which I’d packed all the beauty and anger I had inside of me.

He listened. The sentence hung between us, so solid that I could practically see it shimmering in the air. Then Miles shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Beckley, what a lede,” he said. “In case I haven’t communicated this clearly enough, you’re a fucking fantastic writer.”

There it was, all over his face: his approval, of the beauty and the anger alike. He was looking at me the way I’d looked at him for so long, with a little bit of awe, unable to stop himself from smiling when he met my eyes even though we were about to do something nerve-racking, maybe even dangerous. I flushed. “Thanks.”

He took a step toward me. “Any way I can convince you to keep reading?”

“No,” I said, and shut the computer, turning away to put it down on the coffee table. “Tonight, after you’ve seen it all for yourself, then I’ll send you the whole thing.” I rolled my shoulders, then turned back to him. He’d moved even closer when I’d put my computer away. There were only inches between us now. “I . . . I guess I should get going. See you on the other side?”

“Wait,” he said. He put his arm around my waist and drew me in close to him. He smelled like pine, and when he leaned in to kiss me, he had coffee on his breath. He kissed me hungrily, like he had the first time, and this time he was free, we were both free, to keep pressing against each other.

I’d spent so much time thinking about the night when we’d done this before, turning over the memory, living in the feeling of it. Now, though, he moved his lips on mine and trailed his fingers up and down my back, and I was distracted. Maybe I was too nervous about what was to come later in the night. Maybe it was the flash of Raf’s face in my mind, how it shone as I’d turned toward him in the dark, the night I’d gotten into his bed. Maybe it was the fact that Miles was still my editor, and that was a little screwed up, wasn’t it?

As my mind was still processing all of it, Miles stepped back and grinned at me. “I’ve been wanting to do that again for a long time,” he said. “Perhaps not the best moment for it. But also no time like when you’re about to do a risky recon mission, right?”

“Right,” I said. “Sorry, I just—I’m all over the place right now.”

“Of course,” he said, and touched my cheek briefly before walking to the door. “Well, shall we?”

FIFTY

When I turned onto the block that held the Nevertheless clubhouse, I couldn’t make myself go in just yet. It was still early, and I had too much jittery energy buzzing around in my body to go make chitchat with the other club members while we shot furtive looks at the time and at the door. So instead, I headed over toward the water to practice some deep-breathing techniques.

With a dull roar, airplanes flew through the dark sky overhead. A barge glided down the river, slow and unbothered. The wind picked up, so I hugged my jacket closer to me as I approached the water. Putting my hands on the railing, I stared at the Hudson River. It churned and rippled, making me so dizzy that I had to look away.

A few feet down from me, another woman stared at the water, lost in thought, wearing sweatpants and a baseball cap with the brim pulled down low. As the headlights from the cars behind us illuminated her face, I glanced over at her, then glanced away. And then I looked again.

“Excuse me,” I said, my heart pounding. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but are you Nicole Woo-Martin?”

She turned, a wary look on her wide face. “Hello,” Nicole said. “Yes.”

I’d spent so long thinking about her that I couldn’t believe she was actually standing in front of me. But there she was, not an illusion, a little worse for