Not hard. Just present. Reading me the way he reads tree lines and sight lines and the sound of an engine that doesn't belong.
He steps around the counter. Comes to me. Takes my face in his hands. Doesn't kiss me.
"You're scared."
"I'm annoyed."
"Same thing with you."
"Don't do that. Don't turn what I'm feeling into a bit."
His thumbs stop moving on my cheekbones.
"Okay."
"Tuesday is four days. We said four days. You said four days on this porch yesterday. Marcus gave you four days. And nowI'm three days into a thing with a man who saved my life twice and talks to me like he's been waiting to and I'm supposed to get on a plane and write copy about a politician's son."
"Three days in and you're already folding it into past tense."
"I'm not folding anything."
"You saidwasandwerethree times in the last minute."
I step back from him.
His hands drop.
"I'm protecting myself, Gray."
"From what."
"From the version of this where I get on the plane Tuesday and you call less and less and in six months I'm a woman who used to know a man in the mountains. I've seen this movie. I know how it ends."
"You don't know me."
"I know men."
"Not this one."
The afternoon isbad in a quiet way.
I call my editor. Get the brief. Say I'll be on the Tuesday call. Hang up. Call Yara. Get yelled at for not calling sooner. Cry a little on the phone, which I did not plan. Hang up. Make a list in my notebook of everything I have to do when I get back to Toronto and it's a long list and each line feels like a small door closing.
Gray stays out of my way. Goes into the office. Works on something. Comes out at one and makes me a sandwich I don'teat. Goes back in. At three he takes a call from Marcus I can hear in pieces through the door.
She's fine. Yeah. She knows. I know. Marcus. Marcus. I'm not going to. I'm not. Okay.
At four he comes out and finds me on the porch with a blanket and the notebook.
"Story's out."
"I know."
"Going big. Every outlet picked it up."
"Good."
"Hennessy's resigning from the committee."
