"Seventeen."
She nodded once. Something moved across her face that I didn't have a name for yet.
"The fighting," she said. "You were good at it?"
Of everything she could have asked. "Yeah. Until I started losing on purpose."
"The throws? That's what got you arrested? Not the fighting itself?"
"Illegal betting operation. I was part of the machinery," I said, the shame as fresh as ever. "I knew what I was doing. That's not something I get to walk away from."
She was quiet for a while. Her thumb moved once against my ribs, a small unconscious motion, and I wasn't sure she was aware she'd done it.
"Did she know?" she asked. "Your mother. What you were doing to pay the bills."
I thought about that sunny kitchen. The bad chicken. The way she'd folded laundry while she talked so she didn't have to look at me when she said the things that mattered. "She knew something was wrong. She didn't ask what. I think she'd decided not to."
"Because she needed the money."
My half laugh came out bitter, and I shook my head as much as the pillow allowed. "No. Because she needed me to still be her kid." I looked at the ceiling. "It's different."
Nadia was quiet for long enough that I turned to look at her.
She was still watching me. In the pink glow of the lamp, her expression had settled into something I could finally read. As if she'd been handed a piece of information that rearranged something she'd been looking at from the wrong angle.
"I'm sorry," she said. "That can't have been easy." She waited a beat before carrying on. "I'm glad you told me."
The words were simple, and she meant every one of them.
"I know what I am," I said, rolling onto my side so we were face-to-face. "So if you want out, now's the time. You're successful, stable, you have your act together. I'm three years out of county lockup and one lousy decision away from wrecking my second chance."
"I don't see you that way."
"Then how do you see me?"
She took her time with it. "I see someone who shows up every day for an elderly woman who isn't even family. Someone who works hard and makes his team laugh and looks at me like I'm the only person in the room. Someone who scares the hell out of me because I'm pretty sure I could fall in love with him if I'm not careful."
I had the words. That was the thing. They'd been sitting in my chest since four o'clock that morning, when she'd shifted in her sleep and grabbed a fistful of my shirt like I might leave my own bed. All I had to do was say them back.
"Nadia." Her name came out fine. The rest didn't come out at all. Somewhere between my chest and my mouth, the sentence hit a wall I hadn't known I'd built, and what made it through was, "I'm not going anywhere."
She watched me. The lamp put its pink light on the side of her face, and I watched her take what I'd said, hold it up next to what she'd said, and measure the gap. She looked like a woman doing math.
"That's a different answer than the one I gave you," she said.
"It's the one I've got." Then, because she'd earned it and because lying to her after the last hour felt impossible, I added, "It's not everything. It's the part I know how to say."
Her thumb moved against my ribs again. This time I was almost certain she knew she was doing it.
"Okay," she said. "Then that's the one I'll take." She let a breath out. "For now."
"For now," I agreed, and felt something in my chest unclench that had no business unclenching, because she'd given me a pass and I'd taken it.
She settled back against the pillow, her eyes still on me. "I want to be clear about something."
"Okay."
"I refuse to sneak around like I'm ashamed of you. I've spent six months pretending I don't watch you across every event in this town, and I'm done with that part."
