Page 70 of Flint’s Strike

She turns in a slow circle, cataloging the exits—living room window, the front door, the window over the sink—and the hallway.

“It’s...very you. Practical. Neat. Nothing unnecessary.”

I’m not sure how to take that comment, so I gesture to the hall. “Bathroom’s the first door on the right if you need it. Bedroom’s the second.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I cringe. “Shit. I didn’t mean to imply— We don’t have to do anything. We can just talk. Or⁠—”

“Eliot. Stop.” Her hand settles against my cheek. Against the beard I’ve let grow the past few days because shaving has been too much to handle. “We’ll get to the bedroom. I want to get to the bedroom. Tonight.”

I’m suddenly parched. Or maybe I just need a moment to believe she’s here. That my past—my damage—hasn’t scared her off yet.

“Water?” I ask. “Or I’ve got Shiner and Dr. Pepper.”

“Water. Thanks. Still hotter than blazes out there.” She takes another look around as I pull two glasses from the cabinet. “You don’t have anything on your walls.”

“I have a calendar.”

Her side-eye must make even the most hardened suspects squirm. Hell, I want to squirm, and she’s made it very clear we’re gonna knock boots before the night’s over.

“It’s from a feed store. You don’t have any reason to go to a feed store that I can see. Unless there’s a chicken coop in the bedroom. In which case, we should move this to my place.”

“No chickens. No pets at all. At least none I know of. And that’s a perfectly good calendar.”

That pulls a laugh out of her, and she wanders over to the kitchen table. “Oh, come on,” she says, standing over the puzzle. Half the border’s done, and the middle’s a massive pool of blue, everything from azure to sky to what might be turquoise bleeding together with nothing but bubbles and the occasional bit of coral to orient by. “This looks like someone scooped up a box full of ocean and dumped it out onto your table.”

“It’s a reef. There’s a turtle in it somewhere. At least one fish, too.”

Bracing her hands on the table, she studies what little of the puzzle I’ve managed. “I don't see a turtle.”

“It’s under—” I jab my finger at a pile of pieces I haven’t sorted yet. “Well, it’s supposed to be.”

“You bought a two-thousand-piece puzzle that’s ninety percent water.”

I shrug. “It was five dollars at the thrift store and wasn’t missin’ any pieces. Seemed like a good deal at the time.”

She makes a small sound, contemplating the large pile I haven’t touched, then shakes her head. “How long does something like this take you?”

“I can finish a thousand-piece in a couple of weeks.” I come around to stand next to her, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. “Then I give it away and start another. This one…I might die of old age first.”

She nudges me, a hint of disbelief in her tone. “You don’t keep any of them?”

“Nope. It’s not about the picture.” I frown, suddenly worried what I’m about to say will be one more mark against me. But I sure as shit can’t lie to her. “The puzzle’s somethin’ to do with my hands—and my brain—when I can’t sleep.”

She looks up at me, and I can tell she’s turning that over, filing it next to everything else she’s learned about me tonight, but she doesn’t push. “Like the knitting.”

“Yup.”

A wicked smile curves her lips. “Where is it? The knitting.”

Dammit. I was hoping she wouldn’t ask. I nod toward the end table. "Under there. I usually work on it after dinner for an hour or so. Sometimes more in the middle of the night if the puzzle’s not doing it.”

“Can I see?”

I retrieve the glass of ice water I left on the counter, pass it to her, then carefully lower myself down on my good knee to pull out my project box.

“Wait. Are you showin’ me the blue blanket? Or the ‘put this on the runway during a blackout so planes can land’ blanket? Because if it’s the latter, I’ll need to run out to my car to grab my sunglasses right quick.”

I cringe. “The blue one’s done and gone.”

“Gone?”