"Good." She reaches for my hand, lacing our fingers together. "You needed some rule-breaking in your life."
We walk slowly through the campus, taking the long route back to the apartment building. The night air is cool against our faces, and Maya swings our joined hands between us like we have all the time in the world.
"That poem," she says after a while. "The one about walls and foundations. Did you really translate it, or...?"
"The framework was there. A twelfth-century verse about the architecture of love." I squeeze her hand. "I may have taken some creative liberties with the contemporary application."
"Creative liberties." She grins up at me. "I like that. Makes you sound dangerous."
"I am dangerous. I've been known to return library books a full day late."
"Scandalous."
We've reached the edge of campus now, the familiar streets of our neighborhood stretching ahead. Maya tugs me toward a bench beneath a streetlight, clearly in no hurry to end the evening.
"Ursak." She turns to face me properly, still holding my hand. "What happens now? With us, I mean. With the immigration stuff hanging over everything."
The question I've been dreading and hoping for in equal measure. "I don't know. Twelve days until my hearing. After that..." I shrug, trying to appear more casual than I feel.
"After that, we figure it out."
"Maya, if they deny my appeal?—"
"Then we figure that out too." She shifts closer on the bench. "I meant what I said in the laundry room. About making it work whatever happens."
"Long-distance relationships are difficult. Especially when one person might be on a different continent."
"So are short-distance relationships where one person is too scared to try."
The truth of it hits me like a physical blow. How long have I been using the immigration situation as an excuse to keep my distance? How many opportunities have I missed because I was too afraid of the potential endings to risk the beginning?
"Stone warms slow," I say finally.
"But it does warm. Eventually." Maya's smile is soft in the streetlight. "Besides, I happen to like the slow warming kind. More reliable than things that heat up fast and burn out."
I lean down to kiss her again, longer this time, tasting the promise of whatever comes next. When we break apart, Maya rests her head against my shoulder, and we sit watching the occasional car pass.
"Thirteen days," she murmurs against my shirt.
"Twelve now. It's past midnight."
"Twelve days to build the strongest case possible. No more hiding."
"No more hiding," I agree, and for the first time in weeks, the countdown doesn't feel like a death sentence.
It feels like a beginning.
CHAPTER 13
MAYA
Iwake up with a mission and twelve cans of black beans.
The building's monthly potluck is tomorrow night, which gives me exactly twenty-four hours to transform our neighbors from polite acquaintances who complain about noise levels into a coalition of orc rights activists. Or at least people willing to sign a petition.
"This is either brilliant or completely insane," I mutter, dumping the beans into my largest pot. TheSave the Orccampaign starts with comfort food.
My phone vibrates with a text from Dex:Immigration lawyer says character witnesses help. Lots of them. Make it happen.
