But I’m going to try to deserve her anyway.
“This was nice,” she says when her plate is empty. “I didn’t expect nice.”
“Neither did I.”
She stands, gathering her dishes, and I reach out to stop her.
“Leave them.”
“Tolin—“
“Leave them. Please.”
She hesitates, then sets them back down. Our eyes meet across the table.
“Thank you,” I say. “For dinner. For... talking to me.”
“Thank you for listening.” She hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. The touch burns through me, warm and electric. “Goodnight, Tolin.”
“Goodnight, Imani.”
She walks toward the hallway, pauses at the entrance, and looks back at me.
“Think about what I said. About your clan.”
Then she’s gone, her door clicking shut behind her, leaving me alone with the dishes and the growing certainty that this woman is going to save my life.
If I let her.
15
IMANI
Ican’t sleep.
I’ve been lying in this bed for an hour, staring at the ceiling, replaying the evening in my head. The cooking. The banter. The way he looked at me when I talked about his clan.
The way his shoulder felt under my hand when I touched him.
I turn onto my side, punching the pillow into a more comfortable shape. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. My body is restless, my mind won’t shut up, and underneath it all there’s that pull again.
That damn pull.
It’s stronger now than it’s ever been. Like something magnetic drawing me toward the door. Toward him.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think about something else. The green chair. My apartment. The savings in my shoebox that I was supposed to be adding to this weekend.
But every thought circles back to him. His laugh when I teased him about the brown sugar. The vulnerability in hiseyes when he talked about his brother. The way he said “woman” like it meant something more than just a word.
This is crazy. He’s the man who crushed my phone. Ripped off my car door. Trapped me in this cabin against my will.
But he’s also the man who made me breakfast. Who listened to my story about Darnell without interrupting or making excuses for him. Who looked at me like I was something precious when I talked about wanting a home.
I throw off the covers and sit up.
I need water. That’s all. Just a glass of water, and then I’ll come back to bed and force myself to sleep.
I’m wearing the nightgown I packed—simple cotton, pale blue, hitting just above my knees. I should put on something more substantial. A robe, at least. But I’m just getting water. He’s probably asleep by now anyway.
