"For stepping in. For not walking past."
"I never walk past."
"I know. That's why I'm proud of you."
He goes to the booth. I go to work. The day passes normally. Steam, pour, tamp, pull. Nobody else comments on my face except a regular who asks if I'm okay and Toby, who comes in at noon, sees the bruise, and says "the other guy better look worse" without missing a beat.
At 6 PM, I clock out. Silas is waiting. We walk toward —
Toward Haven House. The route we always take.
"Actually," I say at the corner of Madison. "Can we go to your place tonight? I don't feel like the shelter."
"Of course."
Bought myself a night. One night in a bed, in his arms, in the warmth. Tomorrow I'll figure out the next night. And the next.
At the bar, Jason's in the kitchen. Knox behind the counter. The pride moving around us in the pattern I'm starting to know by heart. Silas takes me upstairs, gives me the ice pack again, changes my shirt because there's blood on the collar I didn't notice.
I put on his shirt. The gray one with the hole near the hem. It smells like him.
"Stay the weekend."
"Silas —"
"You got punched in the face defending a girl from an asshole. You deserve a weekend. The shelter will survive without you."
The shelter will survive without me. The shelter is already surviving without me. The shelter doesn't know where I am and doesn't care because I don't live there anymore.
"Okay," I say. "The weekend."
Two nights. I'll figure out Monday.
He pulls me against him on the bed, carefully, avoiding the bruise, and I press my face into his chest and breathe him in and try not to think about what I'm doing. Editing again. Managing the information. Giving him the version that doesn't trigger the rescue instinct.
I won't lie to you again, I said. In this bed. In the dark. After the virgin confession.
I'm not lying. I'm just not telling him everything. There's a difference.
There isn't a difference.
But it's warm here, and he's holding me, and the alternative is the laundromat on Fifth with its fluorescent lights and plastic chairs, and I'm so tired. I'm so tired of being brave and independent and alone with my backpack and my countdown.
I close my eyes. Fall asleep in his arms. Safe, warm, temporary.
The countdown continues.
Chapter 19
Silas
Monday evening. Seven-thirty. I'm in the garage finishing a Sportster when the bar door opens and Robin walks in.
He's not supposed to be here. The café closed an hour ago and Robin usually goes to Ash's house after closing. Home, shower, Vaughn, their routine. He doesn't come to the bar on Monday nights. But he's here now, still in his apron, flour on his hands, and he's furious. Not the performative Robin-fury that comes with exclamation points and dramatic sighing. The real kind. The kind that makes his voice tight and his hands shake.
"Where's Devin?" Robin demands.
"Library, I think. Why?"