"Of course you do." She pops an edamame. "What happens when you run out of list?"
"I do not run out of list."
The bento boxes arrive. Traditional arrangement. She finishes about half, which is more than the past four days combined.
When the hostess brings the check, I pay before Angelina can reach for her purse. The hostess bows as we pass. "Mata kite ne, Tanaka-san."
Angelina glances at me as we walk out. "You have a regular table."
"I have a lot of regular tables."
"In restaurants where they greet you by name."
"Some of them."
She's quiet for half a block. Then: "What else don't I know about you?"
Everything, nothing, the things I'm going to do while she sleeps.
"Ask me sometime," I say. "When you are ready to hear the answers."
She doesn't respond. But when my hand finds her back again, she leans into it.
Her bedroom door is closed but not locked, never locked.
Her caution works in my favor.
3:07 AM. Her light went off at 1:15. The exterior camera caught the window going dark. Nearly two hours of silence since then, no footsteps on the landing, no padding downstairs for water the way she does when sleep refuses to come. Long enough for what I need to do.
My door eases open. The right hallway stretches ahead, dark and silent. I tested these floorboards two nights ago and mapped every loose board between my room and hers. The carpet runner down the center helps, but the boards near the walls still groan if you step wrong.
I stay on the runner.
Past the guest bathroom, past the monitoring station still running behind its closed door. The landing opens ahead, small table with its lamp casting a pale circle of light, neutral ground, the line between my territory and hers.
I cross it.
Their hallway feels different. Warmer, lived in. Family photos line the walls, Angelina and Chesca only, no men in any frame. At the far end, faint ocean waves drift from under Chesca's door, her sound machine running. The jack-and-jill bathroom glows between the two rooms, night light always on.
Angelina's door is first. Dark wood, lever handle. I mapped the distance from the landing: six steps on the runner, two more to her door. The boards here are more worn than the guest wing.
My hand closes around the lever, cool metal against my palm. I press down in increments, the way a hundred nighttime operations taught me. Slow, steady, feeling for the exact moment the latch releases.
The softest click, and nothing changes in the room beyond.
The door swings inward on silent hinges. I oiled them three days ago while she was in the shower, water running, steam rising, fifteen minutes where I could move through her house unobserved. Just in case.
The room smells like her, mandarin and rose and the warm undertone of her skin, something I have never been able to name but would know anywhere.
Moonlight cuts through the gap in her curtains. Silver bars across the hardwood. Her hair lies in a loose braid across the pillow, dark waves she plaits every night before bed. The covers rise and fall with each breath. One bare shoulder emerges from the blanket, pale against the dark sheets.
Don't look.
I look.
The curve of her shoulder blade, the line of her collarbone, her face turned slightly toward me with lips parted.
My cock hardens. I squeeze once through my pants, then adjust without taking my eyes off her.