“That’s between you and him.” I keep my voice even. “I’m not trying to get in the middle of anything.”
“There’s nothing to get in the middle of,” she says. “He lied. A lot. I kept pretending it was a misunderstanding.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I want to.”
So I shut up and let her.
She slides her locket off and sets it by the sink. She watches her hands as she talks. “He started pulling away months ago. Every time the songs didn’t show up, he went colder. I tried to be quiet so he could hear himself think. I erased myself so there wouldn’t be any noise to blame. It didn’t help. It just made more room for him to be mad.”
Sounds like him. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “I kept saying I was fine. Nobody was asking me to, I just did it. It turns out that’s a terrible strategy.” She smiles sardonically.
And I smile with her. “It is.”
The water hisses, steady. I should offer a plan. That’s my job.
All I have is a simple one. “We’ll keep him out of your way.”
Her eyes soften. “Thanks.”
I motion toward the shower. “You first.”
She steps past me and then stops. “You coming with me?”
I swallow. “If you want.”
“I do.”
She reaches for the zipper at the back of the dress and finds it. The sound is small and final. She slides the fabric off her shoulders and down, and doesn’t turn her back like she’s hiding. Not shy.
I’ve always liked that in a woman.
I strip down slower because motion is the only thing that keeps my head from shouting. We step into the shower. Heat wraps us. Water drums shoulders, neck, scalp. We stand under it and breathe for a long thirty seconds. My heart finds a pace that isn’t a march.
She tips her head back and lets the spray hit her face. She comes back up with water sliding off her lashes. “This is the first time in months I’ve felt at ease.”
“Stay.”
She looks at me like she wants to. “You offering me the night or the illusion?”
“The night.”
“I’ll take it.” Her eyes dip to my mouth.
Guilt flickers. Our ages come to mind—she can’t be more than twenty-eight at the most. I’m forty-four. That’s a big difference. Then there’s Troy, for what it’s worth. I’m not trying to make things worse for him. There are so many reasons to shut this down. They hit, fade, hit again, fade again.
She watches the whole thing move across my face. “We can stop if you want.”
But I’ve lost the argument in my head. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Then don’t.”
“Bad idea.”
“So is living. We still do it.”
