“Might as well be,” Shiloh says. “If we decide to let you keep workin’. He doesn’t usually concern himself with staff matters, but he might with you.”
Reva rolls her eyes like she’s trying not to react to the worddecide.
She looks out the window again. The lawn rolls out toward a line of trees. Spanish moss hangs in slow drapes. The water of the bayou on the edge of the property shines dully.
“They don’t have stuff like this in Chicago,” she murmurs, and the softness in her voice is real enough it almost surprises me.
Then she turns back, chin lifting again. “Can I go for a walk?”
Shiloh and I exchange a look. It’s not about alligators. Not really. It’s about space. Exits. Distance. Control.
“She’s not leavin’ the property,” Shiloh says over her head.
“I didn’t ask to leave the property,” Reva snaps. “I said I wanted a walk.”
I stand. “I’ll go with you.”
Shiloh’s eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t argue. He just leans back in his chair, watching like he’s waiting to see what comes next in this grand battle of wills.
Reva looks like she wants to say no out of spite. The walk wins out.
“Fine,” she spits.
We step outside, using the back door off the kitchen.
Heat wraps around us immediately, humid and thick. The air smells like green things and old water. Insects buzz. Gravel from the manicured pathways crunches under our feet as we walk away from the house.
Reva keeps her arms crossed tight over her chest.
She’s barefoot. That shouldn’t matter.
It does. I keep catching myself looking at her feet, narrow and fine-boned, with bright pink polish on the toes. It’s an incongruity that both annoys and conversely fascinates me.
Her posture eases the farther we get from the porch, as if the open space gives her permission to breathe.
“You can get eaten by an alligator if you wander too close to the water,” I say.
She shoots me a look. “Is that a joke?”
“Wander too close and find out.”
Her mouth tightens, then she huffs a short laugh. The sound is small. Real. I file it away, to have it for future reference.
So I’ll know when something’s not real.
We walk in silence for a minute, and I watch her in my peripheral vision the way I watched her at the bar—except now there’s no crowd to hide in.
No noise to swallow mistakes. Just her and the wind and my own thoughts, which are worse.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says finally.
“Do what?”
“Save me.”
I keep my eyes on the path. “I didn’t save you. I interrupted a disaster in progress.”
“That’s the same thing.”
