Chapter 10
SIMONE
Iwake up alone.
For half a second the panic tries to land, the old reflex from a week of being watched. Then I see the note on the pillow.
Coffee downstairs. Be back by nine. G.
Handwriting like engineering drawings. I run my thumb over the G and feel stupid about it.
The clock says seven forty.
I stretch out in his bed in his shirt and I let myself feel good for exactly four minutes. His pillow smells like him. My body has that loose ache a woman gets when she's been fucked right and held after. The light through the window is pale gold. The birds are doing their thing.
Four minutes.
Then my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Three texts from my editor. Two from Yara. One from Marcus. One from an unknown number that I almost delete on reflex.
I open the unknown one first.
Richard Hennessy Sr. settled this morning. Son's on a flight to Geneva. Tremblay's talking. Your story runs at noon Toronto time. Come home, Simone. We've got a seat saved for you on the two o'clock PM team call.
My editor. From a burner because the office line was compromised last week.
I read it twice.
Then the one from Marcus.
Paper wants you back Tuesday. I'll send a car. Talk before you say anything to G.
I sit up.
All that soft good feeling slides sideways.
Tuesday.
Today is Saturday.
He comes in at eight forty five with the cold still on him.
I'm downstairs at the counter in his shirt and a pair of leggings I retrieved from my room. Second cup of coffee. My phone face down because I don't know what to do with my face yet.
He sees me. Stops in the doorway.
Something in my expression registers. His shoulders drop half an inch, which on this man is a full reaction.
"What."
"Story runs at noon."
"Okay."
"Paper wants me back Tuesday."
Silence.
He crosses to the coffee pot. Pours himself one. Takes his time.
"Okay."
"Gray."
"What."
"That's it. Okay."
"What do you want me to say."
"I want you to say something that isn't okay."
He turns. Leans against the counter opposite me. Mug in both hands.
"I want you to stay."
"I know."
"I'm not going to ask you to."
"I know that too."
"Then what do you want me to say."
My jaw tightens.
"I don't know."
"Okay."
There it is again.
I get up. Take my mug to the sink. Rinse it. Set it down with more force than is required.
"I have a life in Toronto, Gray."
"I know."
"I have an apartment. I have a career. I have a team of sources that took me six years to build."
"I know."
"I have my grandmother's cast iron pan."
"Bring the pan."
"Don't."
He sets his mug down. Slow.
"Simone."
"Don't soften me right now. Let me be mad."
"At what."
"At the fact that Tuesday was always Tuesday. I knew it was Tuesday. You knew it was Tuesday. And last night we acted like it wasn't."
"Last night wasn't a lie."
"I didn't say it was a lie."
"Then what."
"I said it was Tuesday."
He looks at me a long second.
"Come here."
"No."
"Come here."
"I said no."
His eyes change.
Not hard. Just present. Reading me the way he reads tree lines and sight lines and the sound of an engine that doesn't belong.
He steps around the counter. Comes to me. Takes my face in his hands. Doesn't kiss me.
"You're scared."
"I'm annoyed."
"Same thing with you."
"Don't do that. Don't turn what I'm feeling into a bit."
His thumbs stop moving on my cheekbones.
"Okay."
"Tuesday is four days. We said four days.
You said four days on this porch yesterday.
Marcus gave you four days. And now I'm three days into a thing with a man who saved my life twice and talks to me like he's been waiting to and I'm supposed to get on a plane and write copy about a politician's son. "
"Three days in and you're already folding it into past tense."
"I'm not folding anything."
"You said was and were three times in the last minute."
I step back from him.
His hands drop.
"I'm protecting myself, Gray."
"From what."
"From the version of this where I get on the plane Tuesday and you call less and less and in six months I'm a woman who used to know a man in the mountains. I've seen this movie. I know how it ends."
"You don't know me."
"I know men."
"Not this one."
The afternoon is bad in a quiet way.
I call my editor. Get the brief. Say I'll be on the Tuesday call.
Hang up. Call Yara. Get yelled at for not calling sooner.
Cry a little on the phone, which I did not plan.
Hang up. Make a list in my notebook of everything I have to do when I get back to Toronto and it's a long list and each line feels like a small door closing.
Gray stays out of my way. Goes into the office. Works on something. Comes out at one and makes me a sandwich I don't eat. Goes back in. At three he takes a call from Marcus I can hear in pieces through the door.
She's fine. Yeah. She knows. I know. Marcus. Marcus. I'm not going to. I'm not. Okay.
At four he comes out and finds me on the porch with a blanket and the notebook.
"Story's out."
"I know."
"Going big. Every outlet picked it up."
"Good."
"Hennessy's resigning from the committee."
"Good."
"Your editor called again. Wants to put you on the Globe and the CBC for comment tomorrow."
"I'll do it by phone."
"Okay."
I don't look up from the notebook.
He sits on the step below me. Quiet.
"Simone."
"I can't right now, Gray."
"Okay."
He sits there anyway.
Ten minutes pass. Sun drops another inch.
"I'm not going to be good at this," I say finally.
"At what."
"At leaving."
"Then don't leave."
"It's not that simple."
"It is."
"It's not, Gray. You live up a mountain and I live in a city and my career is in a building on King Street and your career is checking sight lines from a porch."
"I can move."
My pen stops.
I look at him.
He's looking at the tree line, not me. Mug in both hands. Hair still wet at the edges from whatever he did this morning.
"You can't move, Gray."
"Why."
"Because you built this. Because you came up here to heal. Because if you move for me in the first week of us, I'm going to be responsible for the next version of you that thinks he lost himself for a woman."
"That's not what this would be."
"You don't know that."
He turns his head.
"You're doing it."
"Doing what."
"Deciding for both of us."
"Somebody has to."
"Why."
My eyes sting.
"Because I don't trust it, Gray. Because three days ago I didn't know your last name and last night I said things to you I haven't said to anyone in three years and my body believed it and my brain is playing catch up and my brain is the part that pays rent."
"Your brain is scared."
"My brain is smart."
"Your brain is scared and pretending to be smart."
"Don't."
"Simone."
"I said don't."
I stand up. The blanket falls.
"I'm going to Toronto Tuesday. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to sit in my apartment and wash my grandmother's pan. And you and I are going to figure out what this is from a distance because that's the version of it I can survive."
"The version you can survive."
"Yes."
"Not the version that's actually happening."
"Gray."
"You want me to agree with you."
"I want you to understand me."
"I understand you fine. You're running. And you're using logistics to do it."
It lands like a hand.
I stare at him.
"Fuck you, Mercer."
"Yeah."
"That's not fair."
"It's accurate."
"Don't use my own lines on me."
"Then don't hand them to me."
I turn and go inside.
I go upstairs.
I close the door.
I don't slam it because I was raised better than that.
I sit on the edge of the bed I slept in with him last night and I put my face in my hands.
He doesn't come up.
Not at five. Not at six.
At seven I hear him make something in the kitchen. Plates. A drawer. He doesn't call me down.
At eight I go down.
He's at the kitchen counter with a plate he made me. Chicken. Rice. Something green. He doesn't look up.
"I'm not hungry."
"Eat anyway."
"Gray."
He looks up then.
His face is flat. Not angry. Closed. The version of him that does sight lines and perimeter checks.
"You said you can survive the distance. Okay. I'll respect that. Eat the food."
"You're mad."
"I'm not mad."
"You're something."
"I'm tired, Simone."
I sit down.
I eat two bites.
He eats across from me. Doesn't look at me. Doesn't make conversation.
The silence is worse than the fight was.
When I finish my water he takes my plate. Rinses it. Puts it in the rack.
"I'm going to sleep downstairs tonight."
My stomach drops.
"Why."
"Because you need space and I need to not feel you in my bed while you're already in Toronto in your head."
"Gray."
"Simone."
"Don't do this."
"You did this."
"That's not fair."
"I'm going to keep saying it because you keep calling fair the things you want me to say."
He grabs a blanket from the back of the couch. Turns off the kitchen light.
Stops in the hallway. Doesn't turn around.
"I'll drive you to Kelowna Tuesday."
"Gray."
"Goodnight, Simone."
He walks into the living room.
I stand in the dark kitchen a long time.
Then I go upstairs. Alone. I get into his bed in his shirt because I can't make myself put it in the hamper.
I don't cry.
I lie there with my hand flat on the sheet where his chest was eight hours ago.
The cabin is quiet in a way I'm not used to.
I stare at the ceiling.
Tuesday is three days away.
I made it feel longer by my own hand.
And I don't know if I can undo what I just did.