He held on tighter. “I know. You don’t have to be tired anymore.”
I let myself stay there, pressed to his chest, wrapped and held. I thought about moving my hand to his belt, about returning something, about making myself useful, but before I could he caught my wrist.
He said, “Not tonight. Tonight, you take the care. You don’t have to give me anything.”
I looked at him, really looked. “I don’t know how to just take.”
He smiled. “You’ll learn. I’ll teach you.”
He shifted, stood with me in his arms, and walked me to the bathroom. He started the tub, tested the water, and set me on the closed toilet seat while he found towels.
When the bath was ready, he lifted me in, his hands gentle under my arms. The water was perfect. I sank down, let it close over my skin. He knelt behind the tub and washed my hair, so slowly I thought I might fall asleep right there. He massaged my scalp with his fingers, working shampoo through every strand, then rinsed it clean, using the cup from the sink. He did not rush. He did not speak.
He washed my back, my arms, the backs of my thighs. He left the rest for me.
When I was clean, he helped me out, wrapped me in a towel, and dried me with careful hands. He patted my shoulders, my feet, every inch with the same precision he used for everything.
He dressed me in his shirt, so long it was a dress, then sweatpants. He pulled socks onto my feet. The feeling of being covered, being kept, was better than sex.
He carried me back to his room. He put me in the bed, under the white duvet, and tucked it around me so tight I couldn’t move if I tried.
He got in next to me. He pulled me onto his chest, my head in the hollow between his collarbones.
He said, “Do you want a story?”
I nodded. I didn’t even care how childish it sounded.
He picked up a book from the nightstand. Goodnight Moon.
He read, his voice low, careful, every word a slow drip of honey.
He read about the rose, and the drawing of the sheep, and the man who counted the stars.
Goodnight nobody.
Goodnight mush.
That was me. The mush.
The last thing I remembered was his hand in my hair, stroking slow, his voice saying, “You’re mine, Angela. You’re safe now. You’re good.”
My head was clear.
My heart was calm.
I was his.
Chapter 11
Pietro
TheCarusolongtablehad a rhythm, and I was learning it by heart: Dante at the head, back straight, sleeves rolled precise to the wrist; Marco to his right, already on his second espresso and quietly pocketing the good biscotti; Salvatore opposite, scanning every face like he was drawing a map; Tonio at the end, legs sprawled, with Olimpo’s huge head dropped like a medicine ball across his boot.
Me, I was supposed to be running point. Instead I was picturing her.
Angela over my knee: it played in my head like a bootleg tape, jumpy and saturated, stuck on repeat. Her scalp bowed to the floor, hair in her face, hiding her eyes but not her breath. The way she tried to swallow every gasp, every shiver, as if silence could buy her something. The ten she’d whispered—barely a whisper, more a promise to herself than to me—had nearly ruined me. She was so sure she wouldn’t make it to five, so panicked when she did, squeezing the cushion with both fists,knuckles white, but still she counted. Counted like she owed me and herself both, like she believed the math might save her.
Her voice had broken on six, cracked open on seven, and by eight she was shaking so hard I thought she’d splinter. She didn’t. She only pressed her fist to her mouth and rode it through, stubborn as a bloodstain. When it was over she’d stayed where I put her, as though the world made more sense upside-down, on my lap, her cheek to my thigh. All that fury and static burned out of her marrow, replaced by something dangerous and soft.
