My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag.
“I have a story to file.”
“You have a story to build. Build it here.”
Cole says from the doorframe, “The Wi-Fi here is encrypted. Use the den.”
He gives me Wi-Fi, a den, and a practical reason to turn. My bag shifts higher on my shoulder. Toward the hallway, my feet turn before I give them permission.
I’m already angled toward the den.
“If you get in my way,” I say to Dante, “I’m burning the house down.”
His mouth barely shifts at the left corner. Smaller than a smirk.
“The den is yours,” he says. “We’ll be upstairs.”
We.Dante and Cole. Upstairs.
In the room where I know, have known since the first night I visited Cole’s house freshman year, since the door at the end of the hall and the quality of silence behind it, they close the world out. I have carried that knowledge and kept it from both of them. I put it away before I knew what it would cost to keep.
“Genny,” I say. “Den. Now. Bring your laptop.”
Genny nods, grabbing her laptop bag as she moves.
I walk past Dante, close enough that the heat off his body registers on my arm. His hand is at his side. My shoulder passes his chest. At the exact inch where touching would become a choice, my breath stalls.
Everyone in this room knows how to look.
The inch between us follows me after I pass him.
Cole watches me pass, his lips parted, his gaze holding on my face before it drops to the space between my shoulder and Dante’s chest. His eyes flick once toward the den, then back to my face.
The den is small. A desk. Two chairs. The window faces the backyard. Genny sets up her laptop. I set mine beside hers. The door is open. From the den, I can hear the house. Footsteps, voices, the plumbing. Sound moves through the old walls and floors, catching on pipes and corners before it reaches us.
Dante and Cole go upstairs, their footsteps heavy and synchronized on the climb to Dante’s room. The door at the end of the hall closes above me.
Genny is pulling up server architecture on her screen. I have the financial trail, the metadata angle, the institutional corruption frame, and two months of documentation.
I open my laptop. The cursor blinks.
Cole’s mouth on my body from Thursday. Dante’s mouth on my body from three weeks ago. The envelope in my bag from the man who broke my ribs when I was thirteen.
The cursor keeps blinking.
“The metadata,” I say. “Start with the original sealed-record post. Timestamp, IP, device signature if you can get it.”
“Already on it,” Genny says.
I write.
The story I can publish takes shape on my screen. Above me, one floorboard creaks, then another. The captain and his shadow stay off the page. This house stays out of the story. What I know about where they are does, too.
My phone buzzes face down on the desk.
The 413 number. The second call today.
I turn it over long enough to delete the call without checking the duration, then set it face down again.
