“Congratulations,” he said. “You are now contractually bound for the next ninety days, subject to mutual review and the usual clauses.” He scanned the room, maybe expecting a cake, maybe waiting for us to burst into flames. When nothing happened, he packed his briefcase and made for the door. At the threshold, he turned and fixed us with a look that was almost human.
“Try not to kill each other,” he said, half joke, half warning. “It reflects poorly on the community.”
The door shut with a hiss of displaced air. Silence pooled in the space he left behind, slow and syrupy. I sat on a kitchen stool, suddenly aware of the way my heart jackhammered against my ribs.
“Well,” I said, “that was weirdly anticlimactic.”
Samiel’s face broke into a smile. “You wanted fireworks?”
“I wanted a little more drama. Maybe a blood oath. At least a handshake that could cause a small earthquake.”
He set the pen down, walked over to me, and hooked his claws into the stool’s seat so he could drag me closer.
“We can do better than that,” he said, voice velvet and smoke. He braced a hand on my thigh, thumb circling just above the hem of the T-shirt, and leaned in so close I could count the flecks of gold in his eyes. “How do you want to celebrate?”
I considered. “We did the food. We did the sex. We did the running and the Netflix binge.” I looked down at my lap, then up at him again. “What’s left?”
He grinned, slow and sure. “I can think of a few things.” His hand slipped to the inside of my knee, drawing lazy, electric lines up the bare skin. “But I want you to pick.”
I let the question stretch out, chewing my lip as I tried to land on something that didn’t sound corny or like a test. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to fuck him again, or eat more, or see how fast we could make Fluoxetine run laps around the living room. It was that the part of me that had always felt temporary—provisional, even in my own body—suddenly craved permanence with a hunger that surprised me. I wanted to see if this was real. If I was real to him.
I said, “I want to see if the closet’s big enough for both of us.”
Samiel’s eyes flicked up, a micro-expression so brief I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching for exactly this: hope and terror, in equal measure. Then he nodded and held out a hand. “Come on,” he said, and led me down the hall like we were about to go on a tour of a crime scene.
The master bedroom was big, with floor-to-ceiling windows setting the walls on fire with the Nevada sun. The bed was a fortress of sheets and pillows, the kind of place you lost afternoons. The closet was at the far end, behind a sliding door that looked like a repurposed piece of old mining equipment—iron, worn smooth, etched with sigils I didn’t recognize but wanted to learn.
He opened the door, and what hit me first was the smell: linen, cedar, the faint echo of smoke and something sweet, like the memory of a dessert. The second thing was the sight: his clothes were ordered by color and function—black, then gray, then rare shocks of blue or wine; crisp shirts, jeans, tailored trousers, all of them hung with a precision that bordered onneurotic. At the end was a stretch of empty rail, six hangers waiting, plus two deep drawers with nothing in them but sachets of cedar and a single, folded white T-shirt.
I put my hand on the hangers, just to feel the cool weight of them. “Did you think you’d jinx it if you put my stuff in here?”
He looked away. “Demons are superstitious,” he said, so quietly I almost missed it. “And I didn’t want to make it seem like I was expecting you to stay. In case you… didn’t want to.”
I turned, meaning to tease, but his face was still a little too raw. So I just stepped in, wrapped my arms around his ribs, and pressed my cheek to his chest. “You want me to move in?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I want you to move in so much it’s embarrassing.”
I laughed, and the sound vibrated between us. “Give me a suitcase and I’ll make it official.”
He pulled me tighter, then let go and ducked out, returning thirty seconds later with my duffel from the first place. He set it on the bed as an offering, then stepped back, giving me the floor. I unzipped it, started hanging my clothes—the only clothes I had packed. It took all of three minutes and then there, in the closet, was actual evidence I was going to be part of this place.
Samiel hovered in the doorway, watching me like I might bolt. He didn’t say anything until I paused to finger the last hanger, which was made of polished black wood and heavier than the rest. “That one’s for if you ever get something fancy,” he said, and it was both a joke and not. I could imagine it now: me in some blood-red dress, him in one of those crisp shirts, both of us trying to survive the world outside the glass.
I hung the hanger back on the rail, stepped out of the closet, and squared off with him. “What’s next? You going to show me the bathroom or just wait until I start snooping?”
He rolled his eyes and led me down the hall, swinging open the door to a bathroom that was not just a bathroom, but acathedral to water. Black tile, glassed-in shower big enough for a rugby team, and a steel soaking tub that looked like it had been rescued from a mad scientist’s lab.
The counter was black stone, the sink a basin deep enough to drown a toddler. There was a little lacquered tray, already lined with my sunscreen and eyeliner and the ancient bottle of toner I never remembered to use. Next to it was a box of cotton swabs, and what I recognized as my peppermint toothpaste. My toothbrush rested in a new holder, still in its shrink-wrap. I touched the tray, smoothing the bottles like they might vanish if I looked away.
Behind me, Samiel hovered, then ducked his head, that strange rush of embarrassment again. “I asked the mayor if it was okay to get your mail forwarded. He said it was fine.”
I stared at him. “You’re better at domesticity than any man I’ve ever met.”
He looked at me sidelong. “I read a lot of women’s magazines during the lockdown,” he said. “They said the key to a happy home was mutual respect and clear boundaries. I figured—if you were going to stay, you should have a place for your stuff.”
I spun to face him, half wanting to punch him in the chest, half wanting to… something else. “What would you have done if I said no?”
He shrugged. “Kept the drawer empty. Or filled it with more pasta.” He smiled, a real one this time, not baring his teeth but letting the edges crinkle, soft as a human. “I’m adaptable.”
