We finish the tea in companionable silence. I observe her as she neatly folds a paper receipt into a triangle and double-checks the register, as if ensuring everything is in order in her world.
“I’ll drive you home,” I say when she reaches for her coat.
“Erik,” she starts.
“No argument, little one,” I cut in. Efficiency has always been the mask for what I am too blunt to call desire.
Outside, the humidity feels like it's soaking through our clothes. She carries a small purse; it is barely big enough for one. We walk to my car, where I hold open the passenger door and this time help her get buckled in. The temporary closeness of our bodies makes the city feel like it shrinks. Every ambient noise falls away except for the small, bright sound of her breath. I gently close her passenger door, head over to the driver's side, buckle myself up, and start up the car, heading in the direction of her apartment.
“How many women do you do such stuff for?” she asks while we drive.
“Only the ones I can’t stop thinking about,” I answer. It is true, and I’m not ashamed of that truth. She looks up at me in a way that catches my attention, and keeps my focus on her for a breath, like a hook through cloth.
“Am I really the only woman you do this for?” she asks, softer now.
“Yes,” I say. The humidity makes the lamplight halo around certain parts of the streets. It is easier to be honest when the city blurs into watercolor.
At her apartment gate, she hesitates, eyes forward, remote clenched lightly as the barrier begins to move.
We make our way to her apartment, and the key is fiddly in her hand. “You really, really mean what you say?” she asks, with a small edge of vulnerability that makes my chest clench.
“Yes. Always,” I say. “Don’t forget the top bolt, little girl.”
I wait until the door falls into place and the second click of the top bolt is clean and definitive; then I head back to my car.
Once I’m settled back into my SUV, I open the secure thread and type the note into my smartphone’s note application:
there is a threat pattern on Claire’s block. Stay alert.
I send these words as a text to my brother, Bjorn, and the reply is immediate:
Copy. Monitor that.
The humidity seems to create its own moisture on my windshield, blurring the lights. I watch her apartment window, the small square of light, and the half-moon of her curtains. I sit with my hands on the wheel for what feels like a long time, thinking about how much I would give to keep that light from ever going out.
Her silhouette appears, then, at the window for a heartbeat; she looks like she is staring at nothing and everything. She stands alone, and the memory of the weight of my palms against her back, the quiet reassurance of touch, strikes me."Kameliablomst,"the word settles deep, claimed by the same place that keeps the names of people who change you.
She does not belong to me… yet. I do not mean ownership the way lesser men do. I mean guardianship. Shelter for something that needs room to be wild and open. I want to be that safeplace for her, the hearth and the hands that hold the patch of sky above her when the world wants to take it away.
I sent a second message to my brothers in our group thread with coordinates and a quick text:
Claire’s alley camera down at 22:13.
I flag the maintenance contractor and copy Leif to run a phantom ping. If this is SableCorp, they will test our defenses in small increments. They like watching fear grow like a slow mildew.
Bjorn’s reply:
Good. We’ll route extra cams and drop an extra camera on the lane. Don’t engage unless you must.
I close my eyes for one long breath and taste the memory of her laugh like something sweet and delectable. I put my car in drive and head home as the city hums around me. The humidity makes everything feel heavier. For the first time in a long time, the mental map I draw for living contains a life I did not design, with a soft, stubborn, and impossibly little one under my palm.
Tonight she is safe. That will have to be enough for now.
Claire
The quiet after he leaves is heavier than the humidity outside. I stayed pressed against the door, fingers curled where his hand had been. “Don’t forget the top bolt,”he’d said again, and I obeyed before the words had even finished leaving his mouth.
I may be concerned about how readily I accept suggestions. That is incorrect. It feels secure, like a warm embrace.
