I come with her name in my mouth. The way I used to say it through the wall. Low. Bitten. Desperate. Except she's right here. On top of me. Around me.
She folds forward, forehead against my chest, breathing ragged. My arms close around her.
"I need to tell you something," she says into my chest.
"Okay."
"When it's the three of us, when Dante's running it, part of me is always performing. I'm aware of both of you. I'm managing two sets of responses. I'm in the experience and also slightly outside it, watching myself be in it." She lifts her head. "Just now? I was only in it. You. No managing."
"Is that good?"
"It's terrifying. And yes."
I push the hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear.
"For the record," I say, "I know something else happened on the other side of that wall."
She goes still.
"I'm saying I heard you too. Some nights."
The flush starts at her chest and climbs her neck.
"I'm not confirming that."
"The blush confirmed it."
"The blush is from the sex."
"Maya. We ruined each other. Nine years ago. Through three inches of plaster. And everything since has been the aftershock."
She drops her head back to my chest. The groan she makes is half mortification, half laughter. "I'm going to kill you for saying that out loud."
"Dante would find this very entertaining."
"Dante never hears about this," she says. But she's laughing. The real laugh, the one that shakes her shoulders. "I mean it. The wall details stay in this room."
"You think he doesn't already suspect?"
"Suspecting and confirming are different threat levels. Promise me."
"I promise." I press my lips to her forehead. "The wall stays between us."
"Was that a pun?"
"That was absolutely a pun."
She laughs again into my chest, warm and ridiculous and shaking.
My phone buzzes at 11:47 p.m.
We're on the couch. Her feet in my lap. TV on, neither of us watching. Her heel rests against my thigh, the TV flickers blue over the floor, and neither of us reaches for the remote.
Dante.
Dinner done. Worse than expected. My father knows something has changed. Coming home.
Homelands harder thanhousewould have.
