I lay back down, slowly, and stared at the dark ceiling with him.The space between us had edges I could feel without touching them -- real and careful and chosen by him, every inch of it.
I reached for him before I told myself not to.
My hand slid across the sheet, palm down, slow, the cotton warm from where I had been lying.I did not look at him.I felt the point where the sheet was not warm anymore, where his body heat had not reached, and then the point where it was warm again, and my fingers found the side of his hand.
He turned his palm up.
Not fast.Not making a thing of it.He just turned his palm up and left it there, and my fingers settled into the cup of it, and he closed his hand around mine -- not a grip, not a squeeze, just the steady pressure of a hand that had decided to stay.
I breathed out.
My fingers stayed where they were.His hand stayed where it was.After a while my chest stopped its stuttering and found a rhythm it could hold, and behind my eyelids there was only rest.
Nothing else filled it.
Chapter Five
Rogue
I watched her climb into the F-150.I didn’t offer a hand.I’d already learned that was the wrong move.She didn’t want help.She wanted not to need it.I wasn’t sure I knew the difference, but I was learning.
I backed out of the yard, the muscle memory of it requiring no thought, and headed for the county road.Beside me, she sat on her hands and stared out the window, a figure of forced stillness.
The strip mall was a monument to mediocrity -- cracked asphalt, faded signs, a handful of people moving through a gray afternoon.I cut the engine and the cab went quiet.She didn’t move.She stared at the ordinary scene like it was something she’d only ever read about.For her, I guessed it was.The file I’d had pulled said as much.No debit card, no job, no life that wasn’t curated by someone else.
Inside the store, she followed me to the women’s section and froze.She brushed a T-shirt with her fingertips and drew back, lifted a pair of jeans and set them down like they were hot.She was waiting for permission.The realization hit me low and hard.Fuck that.
I started loading the cart myself.Underwear.Socks.The jeans she’d picked out.I ignored her quiet protest that it was too much.She didn’t know what enough was.When she stopped by a wall of hoodies, hesitating over a gray one, I watched her turn the price tag over twice.I knew that look -- the silent, panicked math of someone who’d been taught everything cost something.I took it from her and tossed it in the cart.
When her sleeve slid back and I saw the full, ugly bloom of the bruise on her wrist, something hard and murderous settled through me.I didn’t say a word.I just moved, putting my shoulder between her and everyone else in the aisle.
At the register, I had my card down before I fully processed the amount, ignoring the way her jaw tightened as she stared at the receipt.I just needed her clothed.Needed her safe.I handed her the smallest bag.“Don’t make it weird,” I said.It was the only way I knew how to say,Let me do this.It costs you nothing.
* * *
Lennox
I pulled a plain white T-shirt from the bag and folded it in thirds, the way Rosa had taught me.She was my mother’s housekeeper, a woman who smelled of lavender and never once told me I’d done it wrong.I set the shirt on the coverlet, but the fold was off by half an inch.I smoothed it, then picked it back up to start again.
I didn’t hear him in the hallway.What I heard instead was the faint ceramic sound of a mug rim touching another mug rim.I looked up and he was in the doorway.
Two mugs.He carried the left one lower, slightly tilted, not in danger of spilling but not careful either.His attention passed over the row of folded things on the coverlet, then settled on the white tee I was holding.
He crossed the room and set one mug on the nightstand.
He didn’t ask if I wanted it.He set it down with the handle facing out, toward me, and then he stepped back.I put the shirt down -- crooked again, which I noticed and made myself leave -- and picked up the mug with both hands, held it.
The coffee was hot enough to feel through the ceramic.I didn’t drink it, just kept both hands around the mug.
He dropped onto the edge of the bed.
The bed shifted under his weight, and I registered the ease of it -- one boot on the floor and the other up on the frame, his forearms resting on his knees.His attention went to the remaining bags.
“Anything else you need?”he said.
“No.”
He made a small sound that was not quite agreement.His attention went to the bags again.I watched him not believe me and decide not to say so, and something about that -- the restraint of it, a man choosing not to push -- was so foreign to my experience that I had to look back down at the mug to have something to do with my eyes.Then I set it back down on the nightstand.