24. Cole #3
I come with her name in my mouth. The way I used to say it through the wall. Low. Bitten. Desperate. Except she's right here. On top of me. Around me.
She folds forward, forehead against my chest, breathing ragged. My arms close around her.
"I need to tell you something," she says into my chest.
"Okay."
"When it's the three of us, when Dante's running it, part of me is always performing. I'm aware of both of you. I'm managing two sets of responses. I'm in the experience and also slightly outside it, watching myself be in it." She lifts her head. "Just now? I was only in it. You. No managing."
"Is that good?"
"It's terrifying. And yes."
I push the hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear.
"For the record," I say, "I know something else happened on the other side of that wall."
She goes still.
"I'm saying I heard you too. Some nights."
The flush starts at her chest and climbs her neck.
"I'm not confirming that."
"The blush confirmed it."
"The blush is from the sex."
"Maya. We ruined each other. Nine years ago. Through three inches of plaster. And everything since has been the aftershock."
She drops her head back to my chest. The groan she makes is half mortification, half laughter. "I'm going to kill you for saying that out loud."
"Dante would find this very entertaining."
"Dante never hears about this," she says. But she's laughing. The real laugh, the one that shakes her shoulders. "I mean it. The wall details stay in this room."
"You think he doesn't already suspect?"
"Suspecting and confirming are different threat levels. Promise me."
"I promise." I press my lips to her forehead. "The wall stays between us."
"Was that a pun?"
"That was absolutely a pun."
She laughs again into my chest, warm and ridiculous and shaking.
My phone buzzes at 11:47 p.m.
We're on the couch. Her feet in my lap. TV on, neither of us watching. Her heel rests against my thigh, the TV flickers blue over the floor, and neither of us reaches for the remote.
Dante.
Dinner done. Worse than expected. My father knows something has changed. Coming home.
Home lands harder than house would have.
I show Maya the screen. Her face shifts. Her feet go still in my lap. Worse than expected. His father read him.
"How long?" she asks.
"He's probably already on 95. Forty minutes, maybe."
She stands. Pulls the pen from her hair, twists the knot back up. Her eyes go to the door.
"He's going to come through that door wired," she says. "The dinner with his father is his version of the envelope. The thing that reaches in and grabs the part of you that belongs to the person who made you."
"I know."
"What does he need?"
"Us. Here. On this couch when he walks through the door."
We stay on the couch. Her feet in my lap. The TV still on, still unwatched.
The door opens at 12:30 a.m. His keys. His footsteps. Heavy. Slow.
He appears in the living room doorway. The suit is creased. His hair is disheveled, a sign so rare it registers as alarm. He looks at Maya's feet in my lap. At the TV neither of us is watching. At the two of us, awake, exactly where we said we'd be.
His face loosens. One degree. Whatever happened at the dinner is still sitting in his body, but his eyes move over the couch, the TV, Maya's hand, me.
Maya lifts her feet from my lap. Makes space between us. Holds out her hand.
He crosses the room, drops his phone and keys on the coffee table, takes her hand, and sits between us. The middle is the position he never takes. Tonight, he lets his shoulders touch both of us.
He drops his head against Maya's shoulder. She holds it. Fingers in his hair.
I shift closer. Press against his other side.
My arm around his shoulders, my hand finding the back of his neck, the hollow, the spot that belongs to all of us.
The suit fabric is cold from outside. Underneath, his body is rigid.
Locked. Maya's fingers move through his hair, and his shoulder finally gives a fraction under my arm.
He exhales. Long. Shaking. His ribs drop under my forearm.
His hand finds my knee. Grips. Holds.
He doesn't talk about the dinner. He'll tell us tomorrow. Or he won't.
Maya's eyes find mine over the top of his head.
The living room is quiet. The TV murmurs. Three people on a couch. The lights on. The door unlocked.
Then Dante's phone buzzes on the coffee table. Face up. The screen bright in the dim room.
Marco.
Consider it handled. David Ashford will be monitored. No further contact with Maya. Call me when you're ready to discuss the details.
Maya's eyes move from my face to the phone. She reads the screen. I read the screen. Dante stays against her shoulder, eyes closed, his hand still on my knee.
He doesn't reach for the phone. Because he already knows what it says.
Maya's hand stills in his hair. Her jaw tightens. Her eyes come back to mine over the top of his head, sharp and cold. Her mouth doesn't move. Dante's breathing is even against her shoulder. His hand is still on my knee. Marco's text stays lit on the coffee table.
My hand tightens on the back of his neck. Maya doesn't say a word.
The text glows until the screen goes dark.