Epilogue - Farrow
Iwas at the kitchen island with the Globe open to the metro section and the second half of a coffee I’d let go lukewarm.
Dane was on the couch behind me, sock feet on the ottoman, reading something on his phone.
It was six weeks out from the Harcourt wedding, and he still favored the leg when he stood up too fast. He put the crutches in the closet a week ago and didn’t bring them back out.
I slid off the stool and went to the door to gather the mail.
We had two pieces. It was a heating bill and a postcard with international postage and no return address.
The front was a gray European street, narrow and slick with what looked like recent rain. There was no caption or tourist text along the bottom.
I knew who it was from before I turned it over.
On the back side, one letter, printed out and pasted on, large and centered.
K.
It was dated three days earlier.
I stood at the door with the mail in my hand and didn’t move.
“Blaise.”
Dane was up. I hadn’t heard him come over. He was at my shoulder, close enough that I could smell the bergamot of the soap he’d started using because he liked the bar I kept in the shower.
I held the card up so he could see.
He read it.
“Where?” he asked.
“Somewhere it rains in January and the streetlamps are old.”
“That’s most of Europe.”
“He’s safe. That’s the point of the card.”
Dane put his hand on the back of my neck with his thumb at my hairline. He spread his fingers wide and warm against my skin.
I turned and kissed him briefly.
Then I walked the card to the kitchen and set it face-up on the counter beside the coffee maker. We could see it there every time we poured.
“Wiley needs to know,” I said.
“Wiley first. Then Cabot.”
I pulled my phone off the charger and before I could call, it buzzed. It was Wiley.
“Speaker,” Dane said.
I tapped it and set the phone on the counter beside the card.
“Farrow.”
“Wiley, you’re on speaker. Dane’s here.”
“Good. Patterson’s back. Full days as of Monday. He’s editing a piece of mine on dog-nappers. He’s furious about three of my paragraphs and won’t tell me which three until tomorrow.”
“Is that normal?”
“It’s his tactic. He’s holding the paragraphs hostage, so I have to call him in the morning.”
I caught Dane’s eye. He almost smiled.
“Wiley,” I said. “We got a postcard.”
“From?"
“K.”
The line was quiet for two seconds. I heard Samuel say something in the background, low, and Wiley answer with one word I didn’t catch.
“That’s the best news I’ve had this week,” Wiley said. “Christ. Where from?”
“No return. The picture is a random European cobblestone street.”
“Don’t tell Cabot.”
“I was about to.”
“Don’t. He’ll spend ninety minutes identifying the lamp post. Tell him after the weekend.”
“Copy.”
“By the way,” Wiley said, “Stanley filed a piece on the Sedgwicks this morning. The Sedgwicks of Stockbridge, not the Sedgwicks of Beacon Hill. Pure fluff, but expert fluff. You’d think he hadn’t sat across a kitchen table from a federal agent six weeks ago.”
“Tell him we say hello.”
“Tell him yourself Sunday. Samuel’s making cassoulet. I’m not allowed to help.”
“You’re not allowed to help because the last time you helped, you put cumin in it.”
“That happened once.”
“Sunday,” I said.
“Sunday.”
He hung up.
Dane reached past me, picked up the postcard by the corner the way he picked up evidence, and looked at the front again. He stared at the slick cobblestones. Then he set it back down, face up.
I poured us fresh mugs of coffee. Dane took his mug, carefully walked back to the couch, and lowered himself with the small grunt he didn’t think I could hear.
At nine, I made grilled cheese because neither of us had eaten and the sourdough Dane had brought back from the bakery on Tremont was too good to waste on anything more complicated.
He sat at the island in jeans and the gray hoodie of mine he had put on three weekends ago without asking. He absorbed it into his wardrobe.
“Two cheeses?” Dane said.
“Yes, they balance each other’s shortcomings.”
“Cheese has shortcomings?”
I didn’t answer.
Dane smiled into his coffee. I plated the sandwiches and set one in front of him. He picked his up without ceremony and ate half of it in three bites.
“Okay,” he said. “Two cheeses was the right call.”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me. You looked at the cheese drawer for three minutes and then made an executive decision.”
“That’s how I tell you.”
He finished the sandwich and wiped his hands on the dish towel I’d left within his reach.
“Bed,” he said.
“You’re tired?”
“Not yet, but I will be after—“
I set my plate in the sink.
He came around the island, took my face in his hands, and kissed me, slow, with confidence.
“Come on,” he said.
I followed him down the short hall to the bedroom. He stood at the foot of the bed, and I rested my chin on his shoulder. He smelled like a mix of soap, sourdough, and laundry detergent.
When I wrapped a hand around his waist, he covered it with his own.
He turned inside the circle of my arms.
I kissed him, and he kissed back.
I walked him backward to the bed.
He let me do it. That had taken time. The first three weeks at my apartment, he’d resisted being moved through a space, even gently. The body of a man who controlled his own footing was a hard body to lead.
He sat when the backs of his knees reached the mattress. I knelt between his thighs on the rug.
I pushed his hoodie up. He raised his arms, and I pulled it off over his head.
I ran my fingers over his ribs and along his good thigh, around to the inside of the leg that had been wrapped in white gauze from groin to knee for two weeks.
The scar was still purple-pink along the entry and pale along the exit. I’d touched it a dozen times in a dozen ways. Tonight I kissed it.
Dane made a small sound. It wasn’t pain.
I worked his belt open. He helped with the jeans, lifting his hips enough for me to pull them off. His boxer briefs went the same way. The thigh was bare in the lamp light.
Pushing him back, I kissed his stomach and worked my way down.
He was quiet at first. He was always quiet at first. I had learned to wait for the moment when he broke. The best way to reach that point was to slow down. It worked every time.
I kissed the upper side of his already stiff cock and started to lick slowly.
His hand came down on the back of my head, resting there. His fingers raked slowly through my hair.
“Blaise.”
“Mm.”
“In bed with me.”
I stood and stripped out of my clothes. He pushed up the mattress in a careful motion, and I joined him on the bed.
We took our time. I knew where his hand would go before it went there. He knew where I’d kiss and lick his body.
Lube was in the drawer. Condoms in the same drawer. I had moved both six weeks ago from a different drawer because Dane had asked me if I was going to make him reach across his bad side to get to them.
I used my fingers and prepped him slowly. He watched my face the entire time.
When I pushed inside, his breath caught the way it always did. A louder sound erupted from deep in his throat. He was starting to break.
The rhythm was slow enough that I could feel my own heartbeat in my chest.
The thigh had healed enough that he could lift it and spread his legs the way he needed to.
“Blaise,” he said. “I want what you said in the SUV.”
My breath hitched. I didn’t break the rhythm.
“Which part,” I said.
He grunted. “All of it. The shared apartment. The whole thing.”
“Okay.” A moan followed the word.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, babe. Okay.”
He reached around to the small of my back, and he exhaled into my shoulder. I didn’t stop. We finished slow, mouth to mouth, and when he came his fingers spread wide across my back.
I came a minute later with his hand still on me.
After, we lay on our sides facing each other. His hand was on my hip. My hand was on the side of his face.
“Yours or mine,” I asked.
“I don’t care. Whichever one has more closet space.”
“Mine, then.”
“Mine has better light.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t sleep right away. I lay there with my hand on his face and listened to him breathe. His breathing evened out before mine did. It usually did.
***
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