Chapter 6
Vee
The smell of burning eggs wakes me.
I lie there staring at the ceiling for a long time trying to piece together my new situation. It’s quiet here in a way that's different from the house I spent five years in.
I sit up slowly. My body is less wrecked than yesterday. The deep ache from heat is fading to a more manageable, dull soreness I can breathe around easier than yesterday.
The burning smell gets stronger.
I reach for the shirt before I'm fully upright. Not the coffee one. The other one. The one Arden brought.
It's enormous on me. Bigger than Malcolm's shirt, bigger than I imagine Alex's would be. Whoever it belongs to is a very large person. The hem falls to my thighs. One shoulder drops halfway to my elbow. I have to push the sleeves up just to free my hands.
The scent is so strange. It's not like anything I've smelled before. A little sharp at the edges, the burnt wood layered in a way that doesn't resolve into anything familiar no matter how many times I try to place it.
I bring the collar up to my nose.
There it is.
My body starts to unknot. The low-grade anxiety I wake up with every morning—the immediate inventory of everythingwrong, everything uncertain—softens around the edges. Just slightly. Just enough.
I don't understand it. The scent is strange enough that I keep expecting not to like it. But somehow I do. I find myself going back to it the way your tongue finds a sore tooth. I can't leave it alone.
I walk out of the room for the first time since I arrived with the exception of the attached bathroom.
The stairs creak under my feet. Voices drift up from the kitchen. The burning smell is accompanied now by someone swearing.
I reach the kitchen doorway and stop.
Malcolm is at the stove. Shirtless. Sweatpants hanging low. His back is to me and I can see the whole map of him. Broad shoulders, the shift of muscle as he moves, tattoos covering his forearms and climbing to his shoulders. A few old scars scattered across his skin.
He's jabbing at a pan of eggs with a spatula like they've personally offended him.
"I think they're dead," I say.
He turns.
His eyes go straight to the shirt. A slow smile spreads across his face. Not the smirk he usually leads with. It’s warmer underneath it.
"Hey." He looks at me for a long moment. "You look cute in that."
My face makes an involuntary move. "It's enormous."
"Yeah." His smile doesn't move. "Still cute."
I look down at myself. The hem. The sleeves bunched at my forearms. "It's bigger than yours."
"Bit, yeah."
"Whose is it?"
His expression shifts. Not quite evasive. More like someone choosing which version of the truth to offer.
"Arden will explain," he says. "Later."
Before I can push, Finn appears from behind me with two mugs and stops short when he sees the shirt.
