“Then you could have set it on the seat next to you.”
“My hands are full.”
He sighs, shakes his head, and squats to light the fire.
“Why are you out here, anyway?” I ask. “Why aren’t you at work?”
He glances at me over the rising flames. “I’m making s’mores for my family.” The real answer is written on his face.Why are you asking me that after what you did yesterday? You know why I’m here.
My teeth grind. There are cameras in the nursery, and in the house itself. Security is close by, at the gate. There are cameras out here, too, but security is on the other side of the property.
“Why don’t you just send a guard down here?”
I watch him decide whether or not to bullshit me. “I want to be here. I don’t want anyone else watching you.” I can’t decide if he picked bullshit or not.
“I’m not going to do anything crazy.” I’m too tired. Bone tired.
He nods noncommittally and wanders off, searching the grass. He comes back with a nice long stick and squats again to sharpen it with his pen knife. Even though I hate him, I’m still fascinated to see him do something like this with his hands. He’s such the stereotypical city businessman. Building fires and whittling sticks shouldn’t come as easy to him as everything else. He should have an Achilles’ heel.
For a while, he’s quiet, but then, like I knew he would eventually, he clears his throat. “I was thinking last night that the best thing to do in a situation like this would be—”
Every muscle in my body tenses. Blood roars into myears. He’s going to send me away. Have me locked up. Pick some other sucker off the street to raise his kids.
Winnie blinks at me, baffled to find my nipple plucked from her mouth. I grab my boob, nudge her lips, and she latches back on.
Adrian is still talking. I force my brain to tune back in. “—do you think?”
“What did you say?” I somehow ask through my thick throat.
He has stopped sharpening his stick to stare intently at me. “I said that I imagine the recommendation in a situation such as this would be for you to talk to a professional. A therapist of some kind.”
“No.” My spine snaps, and my nipple pops out of Winnie’s mouth again. She whines.
“We can talk to Farhadi—”
“I saidno.” Winnie’s whimper stops cold, her wide eyes fixing on my face.
Therapists don’t help. They act like your friend for exactly fifty minutes, and then the chime on their phone goes off, a switch is flipped, and you’re a sad story and somebody else’s problem. And that’s the best-case scenario.
If you make a problem for them, if they know you don’t have anyone, and they’re sick of dealing with punk kids, well they’ve got a quiet room, right? And restraints and olanzapine.
“But—”
“Keep talking about it, and you’ll be sorry.” I stare him down. I can’t back up the threat—I have no ideas, no leverage—but I mean it.
After a pause, Adrian drops a solemn nod. “Okay.”
I wait for him to suggest the same thing a different way or give me some kind of ultimatum that makes therapy the only choice.
Instead, he blows off the tip of his sharpened stick and rises to his feet. “Do you want a s’more or just the marshmallow?” He rummages in the cooler, taking out a plastic bag.
I’m so surprised that he just dropped it that I say, “Marshmallow.”
“I figured.” His lips curve, his smile mostly confident, but if I look closely, and I’m not imagining it, also the smallest bit hesitant. Likehe’sworried about how that conversation played out.
He spears three marshmallows and holds them over the flame, spinning the stick slowly to toast the sides evenly. I like bubbling and crispy, but not blackened. It’s a fine line to tread.
He toasts them perfectly and brings them over, a paper plate underneath to catch the goo.
