Like he measured it in his head before he started.
I watch him for a moment. Then—“What is this, Reth?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You keep me locked in this house. You leave without a word and come back without an explanation. You make me my favorite thing to eat and let me tend to your hand and give me a room without a steel door.” I pause. “It feels like kindness. And I don’t know what to do with kindness from you.”
“Stop trying to figure out what the fuck this is.”
“Then tell me.”
Silence.
“If letting me go isn’t an option, give me something to work with. Because I am holding myself together with flour and sarcasm, and it’s starting to run low.”
“The less you know, the safer you are.”
“That’s a cliche.”
“I don’t care.”
I pull the muffin toward me without thinking. Tear a small piece off the edge.
It stops me before I can speak.
I take another bite, slower this time, because I need to be sure. I am sure. It’s the best apple cinnamon muffin I’ve ever had. Better than the ones I make. Better than the bakery on Fifth I’ve been going to for three years.
I don’t say that out loud. I refuse to say that out loud.
He rearranges the remaining muffins to cover the gap I left, equal spacing restored, like the absence offends him.
“My mother is dead. My father doesn’t know his own name anymore—hasn’t for two years.” I set the muffin down carefully. “So if this is ransom?—”
“It’s not ransom.”
“Then what? You’re going to sell me? Traffic me to some prince somewhere who collects blonde women like?—”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
He turns to leave.
“Reth.”
He doesn’t stop, reaching the stairs.
“I’m being ridiculous because you won’t tell me anything. And I’d really like to believe you’re not the kind of man who kidnaps women and makes them disappear. I’d like to believe that very much right now.”
“I’m protecting you, goddammit.”
“From what?”
He pivots to look at me, buff in place, eyes unreadable.
“Reth.” I keep my voice level. Careful. The voice I use when something fragile is in the room. “When a stranger locks me in a house and calls it protection, I need to understand what I’m being protected from.”
He looks at me for a long moment, then, “From a mistake I made.”
Then he turns and walks out, and I’m left alone in the kitchen with a tray of apple cinnamon muffins and a sentence that has just rearranged everything I thought I understood about why I’m here.
