Chapter 18 #2
"Noted and filed." Her words fade up the stairwell, past the second-floor landing, past the third, until I hear the rooftop door open and close at the top of the house.
The rooftop. Not the living room, not the kitchen island where Remy spreads out work when it's just CPG logistics and scheduling. The level he uses when whatever he's working on isn't supposed to leave his line of sight.
My stomach tightens, and I don't have a name for the feeling. Vanessa is Asher's. I know this. The tightening doesn't care what I know.
Darcy is still talking. "Okay, so for the reels strategy, I'm thinking we start with a wheel-throwing sequence because the algorithm love that people stop and watch things being made, and then we layer in the personal narrative through the captions, and, Evie, are you listening?"
"Mm-hmm." I push off the counter, reaching for a clean mug from the cabinet.
"Process first, narrative in captions. And track saves and shares, not likes.
Saves tell you more about purchase intent.
" The words come out smooth and structured, the register I use on donors and press contacts. Not for Darcy. Never for Darcy.
I hear it a beat too late. Camera Evie, in this kitchen, aimed at my best friend. The closed door upstairs did that.
Darcy lights up, typing furiously. "Saves over likes. Got it. You're a genius."
I pour coffee I don't want. The machine just finished its cycle, and the hiss and drip give me a reason to stay facing the counter, where the stairs are visible in my peripheral vision. The door is shut. No voices carry down. Or if they do, the distance swallows the words before they reach me.
The glimpse lines itself up against everything else. Vanessa's own equipment is set up at the office, not here. Whatever she carried in on that laptop lives on her machine and not on his. And Remy doesn't keep his hand on the back of his neck unless he's working through it.
My hand is level on the mug. My breathing is even. But my shoulders have pulled in, just slightly, and I don't correct them.
He's not your father.
I take a sip. Hot, bitter, grounding.
He's not your father. But that's a closed door you can't reach. And you're down here.
"Evie." Darcy waves a hand in my peripheral vision. "Earth to Evie. What do you think about a collaboration post? Like Yuki makes the planter and we partner with a local plant shop for the styling?"
I push off the counter and cross back into the kitchen, and my mouth curves into the smile that's been muscle memory since I was old enough to stand next to a podium.
"I think that's smart." I slide onto the stool beside her, angling my body toward her laptop, away from the stairs. "Tell me about the plant shop."
Darcy dives in, and I follow her, and the conversation is real, my engagement genuine, because I love this woman and I love watching her build something that belongs to her.
But underneath, the closed door sits in my chest.
The Thai arrives cold because Darcy ordered from the wrong location on Clement, and by the time they sort it out and we reheat everything, it's after nine.
Vanessa left at six-thirty, Asher's white BMW idled at the curb for exactly the amount of time it took her to walk from the front door to the passenger side.
Now it's ten-fifteen, and Darcy is in bed with her phone and a moisturizing face mask. The kitchen is quiet, just the sound of water and the occasional scrape of a container against the sink basin.
Remy stands at the sink with his sleeves pushed to his elbows, rinsing the takeout containers before recycling them.
His hands move through the water with the same thoroughness he brings to everything, thumbs running along the edges of each container to check for residue, fingers curling under the rims. The same hands that closed the door him and Vanessa this afternoon.
I'm drying the cutting board I used for limes. Standing close enough that when he shifts to reach the dish rack, his leg brushes my hip, and neither of us moves to correct the distance.
"Darcy wants to go back to Haight Street tomorrow." I fold the towel over the board's edge, pressing the cloth into the wood grain. "She found a jacket."
"She always finds a jacket." His mouth curves without looking up from the sink. "When we were kids, she'd come home from the Goodwill on Magazine Street with three coats and no pants. Odette would lose her mind."
"That tracks."
He turns off the water and reaches for the towel I'm holding, and his fingers close over mine for a beat before I let go.
The terry cloth passes between us, warm from my grip, and he dries his hands with the same attention he gave the containers.
Then he drapes the towel over the oven handle and turns to face me, leaning his hip against the counter.
"You're quiet tonight."
"I'm always quiet."
"You're quiet in a specific way tonight.
" His hand finds my hip, palm settling against the curve through my sweater like it belongs there.
His thumb draws a slow half-circle against the fabric.
My body answers before my brain does, leaning into the pressure until my shoulder rests against his chest. Cedar and clean skin and the last hint of coffee.
I could ask.
What did Vanessa bring you? What's up there? What are you looking at that you don't keep on your own machine?
But asking means he gets to choose what I hear.
He'll give me the version that fits, the answer cut to the question, and I know what shaped answers look like because I grew up in a house built out of them.
I watched my father hand reporters exactly enough truth to fill the space where the real answer should have been, and I watched them walk away satisfied because the shape was right even when the substance was wrong.
His thumb traces another half-circle on my hip. I press closer.
I'm not going to ask. Because nobody taught me how to read a room better than the man who raised me.
His lips press against my temple, and I close my eyes and let the warmth land. My ear is against his chest, and his heartbeat is steady. Whatever he's keeping lives behind a closed door upstairs, and I'll get there on my own terms.