15. 72 Hours
Nadine
He has seventy-two hours, and I count every one.
That's not something a woman does for a man she has been pretending is a kid.
I stopped being that woman somewhere between scratched glass and my kitchen table.
The first day, Eddie fixes the loose porch step I've ignored for two years. He removes three warped boards, finds rot beneath the left stringer, and drives to Prewitt's for lumber.
June refuses payment for the boards. Eddie leaves cash beneath the register. June finds it before he reaches the door and tucks it into his back pocket while Tack watches with the grave approval of a man observing a fair fight.
"Your family is exhausting," I say when Eddie tells me.
"Your family now too."
The words are casual. The effect isn't.
"You are on a deadline," I say when he returns.
"Exactly. Can't have you falling through this thing while I'm gone."
Gone.
He replaces the stringer.
I make soup. He complains there's kale in it. I point out that county food is worse. He eats two bowls.
The second day, he meets Evelyn Mae. Georgia brings her to the Roost wrapped in yellow, Crow walking beside them with one hand under the car seat as if gravity has become personally suspicious.
Dot has cooked enough food for a funeral and refuses to admit the resemblance.
Rennie labels containers for my freezer.
Boone installs a new bolt on the Roost's side gate because apparently ninety days can be defeated by hardware.
Ledger gives Eddie a printed calendar with the report date, expected release date, filing deadlines, and a footnote explaining jail-credit calculations.
"You made prison a spreadsheet," Eddie says.
"Uncertainty is inefficient," Ledger answers.
Tack hands Eddie a paperback western with the cover torn off.
"Good?" Eddie asks.
Tack shrugs.
It's the most honest review in the room.
Eddie takes the baby and goes quiet.
"Support her head," I tell him.
"I know how babies work."
"They are not engines."
Evelyn opens dark eyes, considers him, and spits milk down his shirt.
"She likes me," he says.
"She has excellent judgment."
Beau whistles three clear notes from the porch. Eddie answers before thinking. Three clear, two low. The baby startles, then settles.
Crow watches all three of them.
The bandana is tied around my wrist beneath my watch strap.
Eddie left it on my kitchen table before court. No note. No speech. Just the faded black cloth that smells faintly of soap and motor oil.
He has already said guilty. The judge has been speaking for four minutes. I've heard only numbers. Ninety-eight days. Eight served. Ninety remain.
Behind me, the club fills two benches. Georgia holds Evelyn. Beau wears both shoes tied. None of it's where I look.
Eddie hasn't looked at me yet.
"Mr. Sharp, do you wish to make a statement before sentence is imposed?"
He looks.
His eyes find the edge of the bandana.
"No, Your Honor."
It's the first laugh I've had in a week. Small, shocked, wet around the edges.
The judge almost smiles.
That night, we go home.
No club dinner. No vigil. The brothers said goodbye at the courthouse because Eddie asked them to. Tomorrow morning belongs to me.
We argue about the thermostat. He wants sixty-eight. I want seventy-one. He accuses nurses of having no circulation. I remind him that he sleeps uncovered.
Normal things. Sacred things.
We wash dishes together. He puts knives in the wrong side of the drying rack. I correct him. He does it wrong again to see whether I'll notice.
I notice.
At midnight, we sit on the repaired porch step with one blanket over both of us. He tells me he's afraid the quiet will feel different when it's not a choice. I tell him fear before confinement isn't weakness; it's an intact nervous system.
"You make panic sound flattering."
"I am excellent at patient education."
"Am I your patient?"
"Not tonight."
He turns his face toward mine. We leave the rest unsaid until bed.
In bed, he touches the bandana at my wrist.
"You don't have to wear it."
"I know."
"It's a grease rag."
"It's an unhygienic grease rag. I washed it."
"Ruined the value."
"Tragic."
He kisses the inside of my wrist beside the cloth.
This time isn't the dam breaking. We know the shape of each other now. We know what is coming.
I push him onto his back and straddle him. His hands settle on my thighs, warm and still, waiting for my decision.
"I want to remember," I say.
His gaze holds mine. "Then look at me."
I do.
I learn him the way I learn any body entrusted to me, but there's nothing detached in it.
The small scar beneath his chin. The pale oval on his left shoulder.
The place along his ribs that makes his breath catch when I kiss it.
The line of muscle low on his stomach. Every sound he tries not to make until my mouth closes around him and control leaves his hands.
His fingers slide into my hair, not guiding, only holding.
"Nadine."
I look up.
The need in his face is clean enough to hurt.
I take my time until his thighs tense beneath my palms and he pulls me up with a broken laugh.
"Was memorizing," I say.
"Gonna kill me before intake."
"Then you won't have to report. Efficient."
He rolls us, pins me gently beneath him, and kisses me until the joke dissolves.
His hand moves down my body. He knows me now, too. Knows the circling pressure that makes my hips rise, the faster rhythm that turns thought to static. He watches my face as he brings me to the edge and stops.
"Eddie."
"Memorizing."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
For once, neither of us pretends.
"No," I say. "I don't."
He finishes what he started. Release moves through me slowly, deep enough that I cling to him through every pulse.
He reaches for protection. I help him, hands unsteady now. When he enters me, there's no first-time caution, only recognition. I take him all the way and exhale his name.
We move without hurry. I set the pace, then he does. Slow becomes hard, hard becomes desperate, and neither of us looks away. My legs tighten around his hips. His hand finds mine on the pillow and threads our fingers together.
The deadline sharpens everything. The drag of him inside me. His mouth at my throat. The sound of rain beginning beyond the windows.
"With me," he says.
I am.
The climax takes us close together, his body driving deep as mine closes around him. He buries his face against my neck. I hold him through the shudder, counting without meaning to.
One. Two. Three.
After, we lie awake in the dark.
"I'm afraid," I say.
It's the only way I can give him the truth.
His hand closes around mine. "Me too."
At seven, we leave for the facility.
The club waits in the outer lot despite instructions. Crow. Tack. Ledger. Boone. Melvin. Dot in June's passenger seat. Georgia with Evelyn, Beau beside her.
Nobody makes a speech.
Crow clasps Eddie's hand and pulls him close. Tack touches his shoulder. Ledger promises the release date is already marked in six places. Boone says the lights will stay on. Beau asks if ninety days is longer than summer vacation.
"Feels like it," Eddie says. "But no homework."
At the door, the deputy gives us one minute.
I put both arms around him.
"Nadine Cobb doesn't cry," he murmurs against my hair.
"Nadine Cobb is reconsidering several policies."
"Day ninety."
"I know."
I don't let go until the deputy says I have to.
Then I do.
Eddie walks through the secured door without looking back, because looking back might stop him and because he knows I'm still there.
I drive home.
His bandana is under my watch strap. I sit on the repaired porch step where I first let him in.
I don't cry.
Except I do, once, for about ten seconds.
Then I stop, go inside, and start counting.