"Some, Callie. Not enough."
"Mmh... Thank you for not bullshitting me."
"You'd have caught it."
"I would have." She picks her fork up, and a glint comes into her eye. "You know, if you ever want help wearing yourself out before bed, I've got ideas."
She holds my eyes while she says it, and she doesn't pretend it's an innocent sentence.
I keep my voice flat. "I'll manage."
"I'm sure you will." She's enjoying herself now. "Offer's open. Anytime."
I don't answer that. Answering it takes me straight to the one place I'm not allowed to go.
There's a familiarity at this table tonight that two people who've known each other a week shouldn't have. I don't know when we got it.
She's following the rule though. She carries her own plate to the sink, keeps the careful distance she's been keeping for two days, rinses, dries her hands. Walking past the table she stops at arm's reach plus six inches.
"Good night, Kane."
"Good night, Callie."
She goes.
I sit at the table for another twenty minutes after her door closes.
I think about her face when she made the offer. The fork still in her hand, her gaze that didn't waver, the small smile that came withhelp wearing yourself out before bed.Nothing innocent in any of it.
I see what she was offering. Her on her knees on the rug in front of the chair I sit in by the stove, my hand at the back ofher neck, her mouth open under mine and then around me. Her hand on me, careful at first, then less careful when she figures out what I want. Her eyes coming up to mine.
Christ.
I think about the other smile too, the one she let me see the morning after the bathroom. The corner of her mouth. The small bend of it. How she didn't try to hide it from me.
Both said the same thing. They said what her body has been telling me for days, what she meant me to know with the neckline she let slip two mornings ago, what she dropped onto my plate tonight without bothering to pretend it wasn't an offer. She wants me. She wants me to know it. She wants me to choose her.
But I can't choose her.
That's the line. It's the only line I have left. Danny put her in my house. Danny didn't put her in my bed. There's a piece I haven't told her. The order I followed. The order Danny was carrying when he went down. Until she knows it, I don't get to reach for her. When she does know, I don't think that smile will survive it.
I lock the front door, check the back, and go to bed at eleven.Fuck.I can't close my eyes without putting her in front of me on her knees again. Another sleepless night is waiting for me.
***
Sunday morning comes bright and cold, and by the time she steps out in jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, her hair pulled up off her neck and her tote on her shoulder, I've got the truck warm in the drive.
"I figured I'd study if there's a break."
"Lou will keep you busy. There won't be one long enough for studying."
She gives me the small smile, gets into the truck without taking my hand, and I shut the door behind her.
I drive the twelve miles into town with both hands on the wheel and the heat low. She watches the road from her side, letting the silence sit for five minutes before she breaks it.
"Has Mama Lou always been here?"
"Long before I got to town. Longer than anybody I've asked can remember."
