Page 37

“Look. Look. Isn’t it pretty?” I gasped.

That was when I realised Tau was showing me New York. This was the core. The heart of the city at night. It wasn’t the quiet back-road route.

Times Square.

I leaned over, pushed my seatbelt to one side and pressed my lips to his cheek. I heard his breath catch at the back of his throat, like in the old movies I used to watch when practising my English.

“Thank you.”

He didn’t acknowledge a thing. His eyes never left the road. But his hands flexed, strangling the steering wheel.

Lucky steering wheel.

The lights thinned as we crossed east. The crowds became doormen and dog walkers, the roar became a hum, and Tau slowed the sedan outside a narrow hotel with a dark green awning. He drove past it once. Then he circled the block and drove past it again.

“Are we lost?”

“No.”

Across the street, a pale stone church with a gold cross stood behind iron railings. Tau looked at it for a second longer than he looked at anything else. I didn’t ask.

He parked in a garage two streets away and carried our bags himself. He walked half a step in front of me the whole way, and I noticed that every time I drifted, his hand found the small of my back and steered me straight without a word. I didn’t drift much after that.

The lobby was small and warm and smelled of lemon polish and old wood. A tired man sat behind the desk with a cup of tea. I stood very still beside Tau in his long coat and my flip-flops and tried to look like someone who belonged.

Tau flicked through his cards. Again.

“Which one is real?” I whispered.

“None.”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood. The clerk slid a key card across the desk and told us we were on the twelfth floor. I told myself the elevator was why my stomach dropped.

The room was bigger than I expected. A soft grey carpet, tall windows, and a view of a thousand lit squares. One king bed, made up with a crisp white spread. I raised my eyebrows. Tau saw it and said nothing.

“Two nights,” he said. “Perhaps three.”

“Why three?”

“Business.”

I let that go. I crossed to the window and rested my forehead against the cold glass. It was beautiful.

“Tau?”

“Yes.”

“This is the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in.”

“It is average.”

I smiled, properly, for the first time in days. Not long after, he was standing beside me. Not touching. A hand’s breadth away, close enough for me to feel the heat of him through the silence.

That was when I felt brave enough to turn around.

To raise myself on the tip of my toes.

To press myself against him.