I let it sit.
He didn't say anything for a beat. The wind moved a piece of my hair across my cheek. He lifted his hand and tucked it behind my ear, carefully, like a man figuring out for the first time that he was allowed.
"He sent a text tonight."
I hadn't meant to tell him. It came out.
His hand stopped at my jaw.
"He sent a text?"
"I miss you.Three words. I deleted it before I put my lipstick on."
He didn't move his hand. He didn't say anything that a less careful man would have said. He didn't get up. He didn't put on the face Brett would've put on. He let his thumb run once along the line of my jaw, gently, and land at the corner of my mouth and stop.
"Good," he said.
I let a breath out. It went out shaky.
"Your turn," I said.
He took a breath and let it out.
"My grandmother got the diagnosis a little over two years ago. I was on Engine 295 in Queens. Had a good shift, a good crew. She had nobody else who could come up here for her."
He looked out at the river.
"I took the transfer. Hartsdale had an opening. Told myself I'd do a year, two on the long end, until she was through it."
"And then she went?"
"Yeah."
"And you stayed?"
"I stayed."
I let it sit.
He had a sentence he hadn't finished. So did I. I didn't push him for the rest of his. He didn't push me for the rest of mine.
The wind moved in the metal of the tank behind us. His thumb stayed at the corner of my mouth.
He must have seen something in my face.
He moved his hand from my jaw to the back of my neck.
His palm was warm there. The wind on the platform was cold. The two things together did something to my breathing I wasn't going to have a word for later.
"Astrid."
"Yes?"
He leaned in.
He moved slowly. He moved like a man asking. He gave me three full seconds to put a hand on his chest and stop him. I didn't. I lifted my chin.
His hand tightened at the back of my neck, the grip of a man who'd been waiting for permission and decided, just now, that he had it.
