Page 471

The loft has been described to him in pieces. He knows about the exposed brick, the pipes crossing the ceiling, the ancient radiator that cooks one end of my couch, and the carved coffee table missing a drawer. He has received pictures of my crooked lemon cakes, overflowing drafting table, and books stacked in places no reasonable person would consider shelving.

Seeing it is different.

His attention moves over the open shelves separating my bed from the rest of the room, the trailing plants, cream quilt, washed-out floral pillows, and uneven towers of books beneath the windows. He looks toward the small round table where my laptop sits beside fabric samples, then at the drafting table occupying most of the wall overlooking downtown Kimball Falls.

“Well?” I ask.

Ryan turns toward me. “Your father hated this place.”

“Immediately.”

“I love it so much more now.”

The answer reaches deeper than I expect. “Immediately?”

“The second I saw the pipes.”

“Lance said they made the building look unfinished.”

“Lance is a cocksucker.”

I laugh as he crosses toward the shelves beside my bed. He studies the titles without touching them at first, pausing when he finds the three poetry books he sent after the wedding.

“You kept Donne beside Browning.”

“I thought separating them after everything they did for us felt cruel.”

“Lowell is on the other shelf.”

“Lowell caused enough problems.”

Ryan’s mouth curves. He removes the battered poetry collection containing “The Taxi” and opens it to the folded letter I keep inside.

“You kept this too.”

“I kept every letter.”

His eyes lift to mine. “All of them?”

“Even the obnoxious ones.”

“I wrote excellent letters.”

“You criticized four books, my coffee consumption, one outfit you saw in a photograph, and an author who has been dead for more than a century.”

“He remains wrong.”

“He remains dead.”

“Then he has plenty of time to consider my argument.”

I cross the loft and take the book from him, returning it to the shelf before he begins defending himself against a corpse. Ryan catches my wrist before I move away. He draws me between his legs when he sits on the edge of my bed and places his hands against my waist.

“This is where you wrote to me?”

“Usually at the table. Sometimes on the couch.”

“Where did you record the drunk therapy interrogation?”