Static in the Palm

The spinach stuck between Marcus's teeth should have been the first warning sign. Instead, Elena focused on the way the restaurant's pendant lights caught in his sweat-slicked palm as he reached across the table. His hands were beautiful—she'd always thought so—but tonight they looked desperate.

"I'm just saying," Marcus said, "maybe it's time we both–" His iphone buzzed against the linen tablecloth. He didn't check it. Neither did she.

Outside, lightning fractured the sky, illuminating the stubborn piece of green lodged in his smile like a shameful secret. Elena found herself calculating how many seconds until the thunder. Five. A lifetime.

"Your dog's been waiting outside for two hours," she said quietly.

"Barnaby's fine. He loves the truck." Marcus laughed, but his eyes kept darting to the door. "You're changing the subject."

"Am I?" She thought of their dog, actually hers, how Barnaby had chosen her the night they met at that thunder-stained rescue shelter three years ago. How Marcus had complained about the dog hair on his suits while secretly feeding Barnaby scraps under the table when he thought she wasn't looking.

Another flash of lightning. This time, the restaurant's power died.

In the darkness, Marcus's phone screen blazed to life with a notification. Someone else's name glowing across his palm in the sudden blue light. Elena didn't need to read it. The spinach in his teeth wasn't a warning sign—it was a distraction, sleight of hand for what was already happening.

"The bill," she said, when the backup generators hummed to life. "I'll get it this time."

She thought about palm readings, destiny lines, how her mother had always claimed she could see futures in the creases of hands. Marcus's palm had seemed so certain that night he'd proposed. Now she wondered if she'd been reading it wrong all along, or if she'd simply refused to see what was written there.

Outside, the storm broke. Barnaby was still waiting. Some loyalties, she realized, were worth more than others.