Page 36 of Don't Tell

His lips still don't speak, neither does his face. I’m uncomfortable with the silence. So I say something. “That’s why we can’t do this.”

Cade remains silent.

"You don't know me. I don't know you. We can't just — "

"Can't just what?"

I shake my head. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I'll be out of your hair soon."

He moves. He crosses to me and touches my cheek gently. “Stay. I want you to.”

There’s a heavy thump in my heart. I want to, but I’m not prepared to believe that he’s just okay with this. It doesn’t make sense to me.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

“Stay.”

“Cade, I…”

“Stay.”

I open my mouth. What comes out is the closest I'm going to get to a joke. "I'm not the kind of woman who handcuffs men to bed frames, Mr. Nightingale."

He doesn’t laugh, but he knows exactly what I mean. "I know you’re not. I'll sleep on the couch."

"Cade."

"I have slept on worse."

"Cade — "

"Suzanne. Go to bed."

I'm too tired to argue well, so he wins the argument in under two minutes.

He goes to a drawer. He pulls out a T-shirt — soft, old, the cotton thinned at the shoulders. He hands it to me. He shows me to the bathroom. He gives me space.

When I come back into the main room, he is already on the couch. He has a pillow from the bed under his head, one of the spare blankets folded across his hips, shoes off, phone face down on the coffee table.

"Bed, Suzanne."

I go to the bedroom and shut the door. I don't turn on the light.

I get in.

This is the bed where I found him, where his wrist was cuffed to the iron frame and the key was on the nightstand a few inches out of his reach. This bed is where he has slept every night for a month. The pillow smells like him. The whole bed smells like him. It is around me.

I lie on my back and close my eyes.

I can hear him through the wall — a page turning, a glass set down on a coaster, the low sound of him shifting his weight.

I turn onto my side and face the door.

I open my eyes.

There is a thin line of warm light under the door. The lamp by the desk in the main room is still on. I look at the line of light, and I think about the man on the other side of it.

I think about him for a long time.