Simone opens her mouth. I shake my head at her once.
"Let us talk."
She sits down. Crosses her arms. Does not look happy about it.
Out on theporch the evening's settling into cold. The light's gone blue. I can see my breath.
Marcus faces the trees, not me. Hands on the rail.
"You're going to tell me what I think you're going to tell me?"
"I'm going to tell you I can keep her safe here for four days."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know."
He turns his head.
"Are you sleeping with my sister, Gray."
"No."
"Are you going to."
I don't answer that one right away. Because he's my brother in the way that matters, and he'd take a lie across the face like a slap.
"I don't know where this is going."
"Don't feed me that."
"I'm not feeding you anything. I'm telling you what I know. I know she's in trouble and I can stand between her and it. I know she's staying whether you like it or not because your sister doesn't do what she's told. I know if something happens between us it's going to happen because she walked into it with her eyes open and I did too. And I know if you need me to tell you right now that nothing is going to happen I will tell you that, and it might even be true for tonight."
"Jesus, Gray."
"Yeah."
He turns fully. Leans on the rail. Looks at me.
"You know what I sent you."
"Your sister."
"The one person in this world who raised me back after my mama died. The one person who stayed up with me on leave when I came home jumpy. The person who does not need one more man in her life who doesn't know what he's doing."
"I know what I'm doing."
"You sure."
"With her? I'm not sure of anything. With the threat, yeah. I'm sure."
He studies me a long time. The wind moves the trees. Somewhere the owl from last night does the owl thing again.
"I should drag her to the SUV right now."
"You could try."
"She'd claw my eyes out."
