Chapter 5 #2
The crowd shifted. More bodies pressing together, more noise.
A fire engine laid on its horn somewhere behind them.
She was pushed closer to him by the surge of people, and he steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.
She didn’t pull away. Her arms were still wrapped around herself, and up close he could see the tension locked in her shoulders and the hard clench of her jaw that was either cold or something else entirely.
“A couple of blocks,” he tried again. “Hot water. You can lock the door from the inside. I’ll go sit in the lobby bar until you text me that you’re done, and then I’ll walk you to a cab.”
She was watching the police cruiser. Two more had arrived, lights flooding the intersection. Her expression had changed, something tightening behind her eyes.
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”
He nodded, guiding her through the crowd with his hand against the small of her back, finding gaps in the press of bodies and steering them both clear. She stayed close. Not clinging—she didn’t strike him as that type anyway—but close enough that he could feel the cold coming off her in waves.
They walked to the hotel in near silence.
The noise from the scene faded behind them, replaced by the ordinary sounds of a Boston street at ten o’clock on a Saturday.
She hugged her arms tighter as they walked.
Her heels clicked against the sidewalk in a rhythm that hitched every few steps on her left side—subtle, but there.
He hadn’t noticed any subtle limp before. Could be because of the cold. He kept walking without mentioning it. He’d offer her his jacket, but it was just as wet and would probably make her colder.
The hotel lobby was warm and quiet and absurdly polished. They both let out a sigh of relief as they entered. Marble floors, recessed lighting, a concierge desk staffed by two people in suits who looked up with practiced concern at the sight of two soaking-wet guests dripping across their floor.
Isaac nodded at them as he passed. They nodded back. Nobody asked questions. Hotels at this price point didn’t.
They got to the elevator and he stopped. “I meant what I said. I can stay down here and you use the room. Shower, get dry. I can hang out at the bar then I’ll have the front desk call you a cab.”
She looked at him. Her eyes dropped to his soaked shirt, his ruined shoes, the water still dripping from his jaw.
“No, it’s okay. You’re as wet as I am.” She looked straight ahead again. “Just let me shower first, and don’t make me use the pepper spray in my pocket.”
He wouldn’t be surprised for a second if that was true.
The elevator was mirrored on three sides. He pressed the button for the eighth floor and watched their reflections—two dripping, disheveled people standing a foot apart in a box made of polished brass and glass.
The doors opened onto a carpeted hallway with sconce lighting and wallpaper that probably cost more per roll than most people’s rent. He led her to his door, swiped the key card, and pushed it open.
The room was big. Not a standard king—a junior suite with a sitting area, a desk, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the harbor.
The bed was made with military precision by someone who’d never served a day—corners tucked, pillows stacked, a folded throw arranged across the foot.
A complimentary bottle of something sat on the desk beside two crystal glasses.
Fallon stepped inside and stopped.
Her gaze moved across the room. The view. The bottle. The crystal glasses. He waited for the question — the obvious one, the one this room was asking on his behalf. Two nights of I’m working, too, and now a suite that told a different story.
She didn’t ask. She looked at the room, looked at him, and whatever calculation she ran behind those gray eyes, she kept the results to herself.
“Bathroom’s through there,” he said, gesturing to the left. “Towels, robe, whatever you need. Take your time.”
“Thank you.” Quiet. No edge to it.
She walked past him. The bathroom door closed, and a few seconds later, the lock turned. Then the sound of water running—the shower, turned up high.
Isaac stood in the middle of the room and dripped on the carpet.
He pulled off his jacket and draped it over the desk chair. His shirt was plastered to his chest. His shoes were ruined. He didn’t take anything else off.
The hotel room settled into the particular quiet of expensive spaces—no traffic noise, no neighbor sounds, just the hum of climate control and the muffled rush of water from behind the bathroom door.
He walked to the window. The harbor was dark, punctuated by the lights of boats and the distant glow of the airport across the water.
He liked this woman. That was the simple, irreducible fact of it. He didn’t know her last name. He didn’t know where she lived or what she actually did or why she ran every time the ground beneath them started to feel solid.
He knew her first name and the sound of her laugh and that she read strangers across ballrooms like other people read menus.
None of it was enough. All of it had him standing here in a ruined suit, not changing his clothes, because he didn’t want her to walk out of that bathroom and feel anything other than safe.
She’d told him she was leaving Boston. She was behind a locked door. And when she came out, she’d probably say thank you, mean it, and go.
That was fine. He could hold what he wanted without gripping it.
The shower ran. Isaac stood at the window and waited.