"The table is having a day," I say.
Dante lifts his head. His eyes are steady. The red has faded from the edges. He looks at me. At Cole behind him. At the kitchen around us, the three mugs on the counter, the dishes in the sink, the pasta congealing in bowls.
"I can do the dishes," he says quietly.
"You can do the dishes."
I sit on the counter again, in my spot, bare feet dangling. Cole drops into a chair at the displaced table and stretches his legs out. Dante runs water in the sink.
Water runs. Cole's chair scrapes against the floor. Tea cools beside my hip. Dante's hands move through soap and ceramic.
The table is a foot from where it started.
Chapter 29
Maya
The bathroom at Elm House has hot water for forty minutes. I know this because I've timed it since I moved in. Three showers, two baths, one night where I sat on the tile floor and let the water run over my head until it turned cold and counted the seconds until my body calmed with it.
Sunday night. I run the bath.
The faucet is loud in the small bathroom. Steam rises from the surface and fogs the mirror above the sink. Just heat and steam. The water climbing the porcelain inch by inch.
The house is quiet. Cole is in the kitchen. I can hear him through the wall, cabinet opening, the clink of a glass, the tap running. He's doing the thing he does with his hands when the doing needs a container. He's cleaning.
Dante went for a walk after dinner. He came back twenty minutes ago, boots off at the door, the pause in the hallway before he sat down on the couch. He hasn't spoken since. The silence from the living room is dense. Palms on his knees, probably. Feet flat on the floor. Wednesday is close enough to feel. The hearing. The evidence packet Richard built with data that shouldn't exist, obtained through methods I didn't approve, aimed at a man who sits on a bench every afternoon watching me leave work. Three days until a courtroom decides whether paper can stop him.
The water reaches the halfway mark. I turn off the faucet.
My shirt comes off over my head. Jeans next. Underwear. The pile on the floor. The mirror is fogged and my reflection is a blur and that's fine. I'm tired of looking at my own face and trying to read what's behind it.
I step into the water.
The heat hits my skin and my muscles lock for two seconds before they release. The water is almost too hot. Almost. The almost is the point, the edge of too much that tips into enough. I lower myself until the water covers my chest. Close my eyes.
The last two days are still in my body. The confrontation. The kitchen table, Cole inside me, Dante in the chair watching. The surveillance data that will protect me in a courtroom because a man I love went below every term I set at two in the morning while I slept with my hand on his chest. The night I spent alone in my apartment afterward, four locks engaged, staring at the ceiling. The day I came back to Elm House because Elm House is where I feel safe and the feeling matters more than the fury.
The water is still. The steam curls. I open my eyes.
"Cole," I call. The house is small enough that speaking carries. "Dante."
Footsteps. Both of them. Cole from the kitchen, Dante from the couch. They appear in the bathroom doorway at the sametime, Cole slightly ahead, Dante a step behind, and I feel both of them looking at me in the bath.
Cole's gaze moves over me. The water. The steam. His shoulders drop half an inch.
In the frame, Dante stays with his hands at his sides. Waiting. He's been waiting since the kitchen, since I told him the drawer closes permanently. Holding himself like someone who understands that the next move belongs to someone else.
"Get in," I say.
Cole looks at Dante. Dante looks at me.
"Both of you."
Cole moves first. He always does, the instinct to fill the space. But it's different tonight. Slower. His shirt comes off over his head. He folds it. Sets it on the sink. The folding is new. Usually, Cole throws clothes. Cole drops clothes on floors and drapes them over chairs.
His jeans. His boxers. He steps into the tub behind me and the water rises and his legs slide along the outside of mine. His chest against my back. Warm skin against warm skin. He settles. His arms come around me under the water, loose, careful, checking whether the reach is welcome before he commits to it.
I lean back into him. His chest solid behind me. My head against his shoulder.
