"About what you want. And what I can give you. And whether you know what you're asking for."
"I know exactly what I'm asking for."
"Then you'll say it."
"I'll say it."
He lets go.
Steps back.
I feel the space where his hand was like a brand.
"Eat," he says, rough. "You haven't eaten."
He turns and walks into the kitchen and puts a pan on the stove and the whole thing should feel like a whiplash, but it doesn't.
It feels like a man who's going to stand between me and every wrong thing in the world while also, eventually, taking me apart on purpose.
I sit at the counter.
I eat the eggs he makes me.
My hands are steady.
My pulse is not.
Three hours until Marcus.
I'm going to survive three hours.
I don't know about what comes after.
7
GRAYSON
Marcus shows up at six on the dot.
He looks exactly like a man who has been on planes and in cars for twenty hours and slept for none of them. Same set to his shoulders I remember from every extraction we ever ran. Same way of entering a room, eyes first, body second.
He hugs his sister at the door. Long. Doesn't say anything. Just holds her.
Watching it does something to me I don't have a place to put, so I go into the kitchen and pour three glasses of whiskey and give them a minute.
When I come back, Marcus is on the couch with her on the armchair across from him. She's got her feet tucked under her. Her face is the composed version, the one she puts on when she's done letting anything spill.
I set the glasses down.
"Gray." Marcus stands up. Grabs my shoulder. Pulls me in for the quick one-armed thing men do when they don't have words.
"Brother."
"Thank you."
"Don't."
"No. Thank you."
