My silence gives me away. Cole closes the space in two steps and sits on the edge of the bed, close enough that I could reach him if I wanted to.
"You're staying here," he says.
"Cole—"
"The spare room. The lock works from the inside. You know that."
"I know."
"You're not going back to that apartment alone."
"Okay," I say.
His hand comes to the back of my neck, warm and heavy, the weight of it pressing against the top of my spine. I let my eyes close. His thumb moves against the base of my skull, slow and steady, matching the rhythm of the breathing count. He learned the count by sitting on the other side of my bedroom wall for four years, listening to me breathe in the dark.Four in, four hold, four out.He matched his breathing to mine through the plaster. I found out years later. He never told me. Suzanne did.
"I'm going to call Richard," he says.
"Not tonight."
"Maya."
"Not tonight. Tomorrow. Let me have tonight."
He studies me for one long second. His thumb pauses, then his grip at my neck softens without leaving. "Okay. Tomorrow."
We sit on the bed with his hand on my neck and the envelope on the mattress between us. The house stays quiet around us. When he looks away, I slide the envelope back into my bag.
The front door opens downstairs. Keys hit the counter. Dante's footsteps are different from Cole's, heavier and more deliberate, the weight distributed differently.
He comes upstairs, and I hear him in the hallway before he stops outside the spare room door. I can feel him there the way I always feel him, the awareness of his body in proximity that started in a kitchen when I was fourteen and has never once turned off.
"Maya's staying," Cole says through the open door.
His hand stays on my neck.
Dante fills the doorway. His gaze cuts over the duffel, Cole's hand on my neck, my face. He starts forward before he can stop himself, one half-step over the threshold before he catches it. Then his hand clamps around the doorframe hard enough to bleach his knuckles. My hand tightens on the mattress edge. He holds the door. I hold the bed. Three feet stay between us.
"What happened?" he asks.
Cole looks at me. The question is mine to answer.
Dante stands in the doorway with his bag over his shoulder and his jaw already tight. The man who bought my tea. The man whose mouth I can still feel on my body. His knuckles are white on the wood, the vein in his forearm raised, the set of his shoulders filling the frame. If he takes another step, Cole will stand. I keep the envelope from him. I keep the name from him.
"Not tonight," I say. "Tomorrow."
Dante's eyes move to Cole. Cole gives the smallest nod. Dante holds the doorframe for one more second, his breathing shallow and his whole body braced on the threshold.
"Lock your door," he says.
Then he walks down the hall to his room, and his door closes.
Cole's thumb traces one more circle at the base of my skull before he stands.
"I'm right down the hall," he says.
"I know."
He leaves. Down the hall, his door closes. The hallway goes quiet.
