Just enough to catch me looking.
“You always listen to the same song?” she says.
I don’t look at her. “Before games.”
“That’s… comforting.”
“It works.”
She nods once like she’s filing that somewhere. Goes back to her screen.
I look out the window.
Florida coming up through the clouds—flat and green and home.
Brick is going to give me the look for being gone three days.
I’m going to deserve it.
I text Josie to let her know I’m landing in two hours.
Josie:He’s been sitting on your side of the couch since yesterday. Just FYI.
I look at that for a while.
My side of the couch.
I look across the aisle.
She’s asleep now. Laptop closed on her tray. Head tipped back slightly.
Without the recorder and notebook and all that professional distance, she looks softer. Less defended.
That gets under my skin in a way I’m not examining at thirty thousand feet.
I look back out the window.
Florida. Home.
I close my eyes.
Her name is still right where I left it.
Back home that night.
I dig the arnica out of my kit bag and work it into my shoulder—slow circles, base of the neck down through the joint, until the heat builds and the ache backs off enough that sleep feels possible. I wipe my hands. Get into bed.
Brick is on my chest before I’ve even pulled the covers up. He crosses the house like he’s been waiting three days to do exactly that and sits down on my sternum like he owns it. I scratch behind his ear until his eyes go heavy.
The house is quiet. Familiar. Mine.
Except her name is in it now.
That’s the problem.
I fall asleep before I figure out what the hell to do about it.
Chapter seven
