10. Dante #3
She stands there with steam rising between us. "A month ago you called me a tourist," she says. "Now you're buying my tea and giving me editorial advice."
"I gave you a factual observation about tactical intelligence in print media."
"You bought my tea."
"I bought tea."
"My tea. My brand. Unopened. On the back of a shelf." She lifts the box slightly. "You want to stand there and tell me Cole put it there?"
I hold her gaze while the kitchen goes quiet around the soft movement of steam.
She smells like lavender, the same scent that clings to Cole's sweatshirts when he comes back from her place. My hand locks against the counter. Her flush climbs along her throat anyway, pink under the skin, too easy to follow.
Then my hand moves.
I do not decide to touch her. My fingers stop an inch from her jaw, close enough for the heat of her skin to make the space between us feel solid.
She stays still, but her breath changes.
Her gaze drops to my hand, then comes back to my face, and the tiny tap of the tea bag against the mug is too loud in the quiet.
I put my hand back on the counter.
"Your pages should be done," I say.
She sets the Barry's box down carefully between us, picks up the mug, takes one sip, and sets it beside the box.
"Thank you for the tea," she says.
Her voice stays level. The pulse in her throat does not.
She walks down the hall. The printer runs again, pages sliding free before a zipper closes. Her boots return down the hallway.
She stops at the kitchen doorway with the Chronicle bag on her shoulder and the profile inside it. The mug sits on the counter between us with one sip gone, the Barry's box beside it.
"Voss."
"Maddox."
"If I run the piece, you'll be angry."
"I'll be strategic."
"Same thing with you."
"I'll adjust. That's what I do."
She leans against the frame with one shoulder, the same position I take when I want to own a doorway. Her eyes stay on mine, and either she knows exactly what she is doing or she does not know at all.
"The tea was a nice touch," she says. "Very domestic."
"It's a box of tea."
"It's my brand." Her gaze holds mine, the flush still visible along her neck. "Behind Cole's Sleepytime."
Any answer would confirm what she is saying.
"Goodnight, Dante."
My first name hits my ribs before I can move around it.
"Goodnight, Maya."
Her name leaves my mouth slower than Maddox ever does.
Her eyes widen a fraction. The flush deepens. She turns and walks out. The front door opens, then closes.
The latch settles into place.
I stand in the kitchen with the mug on the counter, the Barry's box beside it, and steam fading into the air. My palm stays flat against the counter.
I go back to the laptop and open the Blackhawks game again.
Cole comes home forty minutes later. His keys hit the bowl by the door, metal clattering once against ceramic. His backpack lands on the couch. A pause follows, then the office door creaks.
"Was someone here?" he calls from the hallway. "The printer's warm."
"Maya. She used the printer."
He walks into the kitchen. His gaze moves across the counter, over the mug and the tea box. After a beat, he picks up the box and turns it in his hands.
"Barry's Irish Breakfast," he says.
"It was on the shelf."
He glances at me. "It wasn't on the shelf this morning."
I close my laptop. The lid clicks shut.
Cole sets the box back down on the counter. He looks at the mug with one sip gone, then he looks at me.
"How was Marco?" he asks.
"Fine. Family stuff."
He nods once and opens the fridge. Cold light spills across the floor. Containers shift as he moves them aside. He pulls one out, shuts the door with his hip, slides the food into a pan, and turns on the burner. The oil pops softly.
His hands move through the routine, steady, the spatula turning the food while the Barry's box sits four feet away on the counter. The scrape of the pan, the low burner, the cabinet closing under his hand fill the room.
Once the food is plated, he sets one in front of me. Then he sits across the table with his own.
"The profile runs Thursday," I say. "She found something in the neutral zone reads that could give opposing teams an advantage. I told her."
Cole lifts his fork. "You told her not to run her own story?"
"I told her the data had tactical implications."
"And she said?"
"She didn't agree."
Cole chews and swallows. "She wouldn't." He takes another bite. "You bought her tea."
"I bought tea."
"Dante."
The fork sits loose in his hand.
"You bought Maya's specific tea brand," he says, "and put it in our kitchen."
I eat the food he made me and keep my eyes on the plate.
Cole watches me from across the table. His jaw sets. Flat-eyed, he stops his fork halfway to his mouth for half a second before he forces the motion to finish. His knuckles go white around the fork, the tendons in his wrist rigid under the skin.
"Okay," he says.
He goes back to eating. The word lands and stays there.
Quiet settles over the kitchen. The mug with one sip gone waits on the counter, the Barry's box beside it.
Upstairs, in my desk drawer, the recorder sits next to the draft preparation folder. Her voice is on it. Mine is too.