The water starts to cool. Neither of us moves. His arms are still around me, his forehead against mine now, both of us just breathing. The bathroom has gone fully steamed, the mirror invisible, the air thick and warm and close.
"Your father knew about James," I say. "Before you brought me home."
It’s not a question.
He pulls back to look at me. His eyes are very dark in the steam, his hair wet against his forehead. "He told you?”
“Olive did."
He looks at me for a long moment. The water is definitely cooler now, sliding down our shoulders with less heat behind it. "What else did Olive tell you?”
"Everything she knew." I hold his gaze. "Hawaii. My mom. The hospital. What James didn't do." A pause. "She told me Nicholas knew about the pregnancy. That he knew my mom raised me alone and James never knew I existed."
Phoenix is quiet. His hands are still on my waist, thumbs against my hip bones, grip loose now but not gone.
"When did she tell you this."
"The kitchen lunch. Five days ago."
"Before you told me."
"Yes." I don't apologize for it. He understands. He went to his father before he told me things too — it's how we're the same, needing to understand something before we hand it over. "I needed to know what I was holding first."
He nods, once. His eyes go to the middle distance for half a second.
"What did he say," I ask. "Your father. This morning."
He looks at the wall past my shoulder. The water is cold now, genuinely cold, raising goosebumps on my arms, and still neither of us moves to turn it off. "He confirmed it. He looks into everyone. He found out who you were before I brought you home."
I put my hand against his face. His cheek is warm despite the cold water, and he turns into my palm fractionally, a small involuntary movement, before he catches it.
"Do you believe him?” I ask. "About the BBQ. That it was accidental?”
He thinks about this, the real version. "Yes," he says finally. "He doesn't gamble on variables he can't control. If he'd planned it, he'd have made sure you were there from the start.”
I lower my hand from his face. "I've been thinking about something since the BBQ. Whether I walked into this life or was walked into it." I pause. "I keep landing on the same thing."
“What?"
"I stayed. Whatever brought me here, I stayed because I wanted to."
He looks at me for a long moment. The shower is fully cold now, water running down our backs in thin streams, and I'm shivering and he has to be too but he doesn't move.
Then he reaches past me and turns it off.
The silence that follows is different from the silence before. Just two people standing in a cold shower with the steam slowly clearing and the mirror starting to show itself again at the edges.
He steps out and pulls a towel from the rack and wraps it around me. I watch him do it. He smooths the towel across my shoulders before he reaches for his own. His hands are steady.
"I need to talk to James," he says.
"I know."
"Not yet." He looks up. "But eventually."
"Okay."
He crosses to me and hooks two fingers under my chin and tips my face up and looks at me with those dark eyes that I have spent months learning to read.
