She shifts closer. Tucks her leg over mine.
I slide down the pillow. Pull her with me. Settle her against my chest the way she was before I went downstairs.
Her hand goes back to its spot over my heart.
"Gray."
"Yeah."
"Four days isn't going to be enough."
"I know."
"What are we doing."
"I don't know yet."
"Good. Me either."
"Simone."
"Yeah."
"Sleep."
She does.
I stay awake a little longer. Listening to the cabin breathe around us. Listening to her. Feeling the weight of a woman trusting me with her unconscious hours for the first time in six years.
Tamer Khoury's text is still open on my phone on the nightstand.
I reach over. Turn the screen off.
Close my eyes.
Sleep comes, eventually.
And it doesn't bring Amman with it.
10
SIMONE
Iwake up alone.
For half a second the panic tries to land, the old reflex from a week of being watched. Then I see the note on the pillow.
Coffee downstairs. Be back by nine. G.
Handwriting like engineering drawings. I run my thumb over the G and feel stupid about it.
The clock says seven forty.
I stretch out in his bed in his shirt and I let myself feel good for exactly four minutes. His pillow smells like him. My body has that loose ache a woman gets when she's been fucked right and held after. The light through the window is pale gold. The birds are doing their thing.
Four minutes.
Then my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
