Page 162 of A Dangerous Kind of Love

I sit on a bench in the foyer. There’s a showing in one of the rooms, people drifting in and out through the front doors. A few little kids follow behind their parents, laughing, not understanding what this place means.

Sarah sits beside me and pulls me in.

“You’ve got a good guy in there,” she says.

“You didn’t think that yesterday.” I don’t plan to say it, but it slips out anyway.

She sighs. “It’s been fast. I didn’t want you getting caught up with someone who might try to control you.”

I let out a breath that almost turns into a laugh. “Then you really don’t want to hear what he asked me before we left his house.”

Her attention sharpens.

“He asked me to move in with him.”

“Are you serious—“

“I’m not finished.”

She stops.

“He told me I could quit my job. Be an artist. That he’d take care of me.”

She leans back against the wall.

“What are you going to do?”

I watch a family pass through the doors.

“I don’t know.”

He comes out of the office with Gerald, finishing something. They shake hands, and Michael turns and starts toward us.

I look at him. His dress shirt is crisp, tucked clean into his slacks. His shoes catch the light when he moves. The Rolex sits heavy on his wrist. His beard is trimmed along his jaw, his mustache shaped with the same care. There’s nothing careless about him. Not in the way he looks. Not in the way he carries himself. Not in the way he just handled everything I couldn’t.

He paid for my mom’s funeral. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask for permission or make it a conversation. He saw what needed to be done, and he did it.

He kept his hand on mine while I couldn’t speak. He let Sarah answer when I couldn’t find words, and he stayed beside me without asking anything from me.

He steps closer, and I know what happens next. He’ll take my hand. He’ll walk me out of here. He’ll make sure I have something to wear, something I don’t have to think about. He’ll stand next to me through the service. He won’t leave when it’s over. He’ll take me back with him, and when everything I’ve been holding in breaks, he’ll be there for that too.

“You two hungry?” he asks when he stops in front of us.

“Starving,” Sarah says.

“I’m a little hungry,” I say.

“Let’s go get something then.” He holds his hand out to me.

I take it, and he pulls me to my feet.

“Sarah, ride with us. You can sit up front with Luca,” he says.

She smiles and nods.

We go to lunch. Sarah talks enough for all of us. Luca adds to it. Michael doesn’t ask anything from me. He doesn’t try to pull me into the conversation. He just stays there, his hand on my knee, his thumb moving every so often.

I watch him when he’s not looking at me. I pay attention to the way he listens, to the way he decides things, and to the way it seems like the entire world shifts around him.