“That worked, thank you.”
My forehead scrunches before I remember what she’d said about wanting to try something.
Right.
I have no idea what the purpose was if not to make all of my thoughts and brain cells move down to my dick, but I manage to jerk my head in a nod. I try (and fail) to keep my eyes off of her mouth.
“You’re welcome,” I whisper, voice hoarse.
Her hands still sit atop my shoulders, and she kisses my cheek before standing and offering me a hand up. I take it, not actually using her weight to pull me up. Though, after how much weight I’ve seen her sling in the gym, I know she probably could.
“Let’s leave these,” I say, and nod to the assortment of pans on the floor. “Task for tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she agrees. She doesn’t drop my hand as I lead her out of the kitchen and up to bed where Greta is already asleep in a tight ball.
In bed, I study the slope of Marianna’s nose, her eyelashes, her neck.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Marianna says, though her eyes are closed.
“Like what.”
“Like you really, really like me.”
“I do,” I whisper. “Really, really.”
“You shouldn’t,” she reminds me. She doesn’t have to add her usual refrain:I’ll never love you back.
“I know,” I say and pull her across the bed and against my chest. She sighs, but this time, it’s content.
Her words cut less than they used to, less now that I know she worries about me, that she frets for me at all. She may not love me, may never love me, but her care means more than she’ll ever know.
For now, this is enough. Nights in a shared bed, mornings in a shared car, dinner together, catching her drifting to sleep on the couch and placing a blanket on top of her.
Any bit she will give me.
32
MARY
It iswith no shortage of huffing, lingering, and hovering, that Maxim finally agrees to leave for the day.Just a stomach bug, I’ve been telling him. When he demands we call the doctor to check on me, I lie and say it was my period.
My period, which is a full ten days late.
Shit.
His eyebrows pinch together and I reach up and smooth the line there with the pad of my thumb.
“Stop worrying. I kill people for a living, I think I can handle a stomachache.”
“My sisters never threw up on their periods.” He presses a hand to my forehead. “You feel warm.”
“Ever heard of basal temperature? It goes up on your period.” I don’t know if that’s true, but Willa is always saying shit about her basal temperature to track her cycle, so I think I am maybe mostly right.
Right enough in guessing he didn’t know anything about basal body temperature, though, because he looks reluctantly convinced.
He presses his palm to my damp forehead one more time, then the side of my neck, and I’m almost annoyed at the peskycomfort that comes from his touch. I close my eyes for a second and lean into it until he pulls his hand away.
“I’ll be back this evening. Sooner if I can.”
