“I know.”
“We agreed.”
“We did.”
“So that’s it. No more kissing.”
“None.”
“Professional distance.”
“Absolutely.”
She could hear him breathing behind her as she stirred the pot, could feel his eyes on her back. Every movement she made seemed amplified: the clink of the wooden spoon against the pot, the hiss of the gas flame, the rustle of her shirt as she reached for the salt.
“You should set the table,” she said, mostly to give him something to do that wasn’t standing there making her skin prickle with awareness.
“Right.” But he didn’t move.
She lifted the spoon, tasted the sauce, added too much salt on purpose. Anything to make her hand do something other than tremble. Behind her, a chair scraped. Cutlery clinked. Marcus, pretending to obey.
The pot bubbled. Eleven days. She added more salt anyway.
12
The drywallbehind the couch had a crack in it the shape of Hazel’s shoulder blade.
Marcus could see it from the kitchen, where he was pretending to read a deposition. Plaster dust still ghosted the floorboards. He had not swept it up. Sweeping would have been admitting it had happened.
“Good morning, Miss Wickwood.” His voice came out crisp, formal, utterly ridiculous.
Focus. Professional distance. He could do this.
“Good morning, Mr. Hawthorne.”
She’d come in barefoot, hair still wet, three feet of polite air between them and growing. Marcus reached for his briefcase; she stepped left. Hazel grabbed the tea kettle; he shifted right.
Azrael appeared on the windowsill, surveyed their performance, and promptly left.
“The familiar has the right idea,” Marcus muttered, opening his case files with unnecessary force.
“Azrael’s hiding under the bed,” Hazel said, measuring tea leaves like her life depended on it. “He only does that when he’s disgusted.”
Marcus glanced toward the bedroom. “With what?”
“Us, presumably.”
Marcus glanced up. “He talks to you about us?”
“He talksatme about us. There’s a difference.” She poured hot water with the concentration of a bomb disposal expert. “Two sugars, no milk, right?”
Two sugars, no milk. When had she learned that? He hadn’t told her. She must have watched him make coffee a dozen times, noticed the pattern, filed it away.
“Thank you, Miss Wickwood.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Hawthorne.”
They settled into their respective workspaces: him at the kitchen table with case files, her in the armchair by the window with her grimoire. Marcus tried to focus on his notes, but the words blurred together. He was hyperaware of every sound she made: the soft rustle of pages turning, the quiet scratch of her pen making notes, the small intake of breath when she concentrated on difficult passages.
