I don’t know what to do with a woman who treats my worst thing like a resume line.But I know I don’t want her to stop.
She looks up the stairs and listens for something—I watch her jaw tighten and then release—and whatever she hears or doesn’t, she moves on.
“How much for materials?”
Just like that.Done.No condolences.No casserole.Noshe’s in a better place.She asked me why I quit and then asked me how much it costs, and the pivot was so clean it left a mark.
I came here to measure walls and give a quote and drive home and not think about her for the rest of the night.That was the plan.It was a good plan.
“I’ll write up a list tonight,” I say.“Have it done by end of day tomorrow.”
“Great.”
She’s already heading up.Conversation over.I’m dismissed—not cruelly, just completely, the way you set down a glass you’ve emptied.
I’ve wanted women before.That’s simple.That’s a weekend and a bottle of whiskey and nobody’s name in the morning.Ordinary.Manageable.The kind of want that knows its place and stays there.
This doesn’t know its place.This is standing in my old basement watching a woman who doesn’t need me walk away and feeling something land somewhere it shouldn’t have landed without my permission.Not desire—I can handle desire.Something worse.Curiosity.The need to know what she’s hiding, what she’s running from, what it would take to make her look at me the way she just looked at those stairs.
I don’t want to be curious about Marin.Curiosity is how you end up in someone’s life, and I’m not built for that anymore.
And yet here I am, memorizing the strip of skin between her sweatshirt and her shorts like it’s evidence of something I’ll need later.
That’s a dangerous want.The kind that doesn’t stay where you put it.The kind that pisses you off precisely because you can’t stop feeding it.
But I won’t.
Something smells off down here.
Not the cleaning product.
Something under it.Sharper.Warm.
I pocket my tape measure and head upstairs.
Probably nothing.
20
Marin
Charles is awake.
Not the groaning, half-sedated version I’ve been managing for the past three days.Actually awake.Eyes open.Tracking me as I come through the bedroom door with a tray—water, toast, two ibuprofen, and a protein bar I found in the bottom of my suitcase that may or may not have expired.
“Room service,” I say.
He doesn’t laugh.He’s propped against the headboard, wrists strapped to the bedframe with equipment I bought at a kink store two states ago.The cashier didn’t even blink as he personally demonstrated its durability.I’d say it was the most interesting purchase of my life, but then I bought a Faraday bag the same week, so the bar has moved.
The bruise on his forehead has deepened into something purple and planetary.His left arm is still cradled against his ribs.He looks like a man who fell down a flight of stairs, which is accurate, and like a man who’s been kidnapped by his girlfriend, which is also accurate but less sympathetic when you know the full story.
“How long,” he says.Not a question.A demand.
“A few days.”
“A few days.”He stares at me like I’ve told him the earth is flat.“Marin, you drugged me.You drove me to—where the hell are we?”
“Upstate.”
