I am. To the wrong thing. “I’m listening.”
“What’d I say?”
“Something about a door.”
She points at me, vindicated. Squinting a little to keep me in focus. “You’re good.”
The doors open. I’ve never been more grateful to leave a room. Or less willing.
She steps out and drifts. A slow lean, like the floor’s tilted under her.
It isn’t.
I move with her, closer than I should be. My hand comes up to the small of her back, on its own, no decision in it.
No.
I force it down.
For fuck’s sake.
“You think I’m going to fall.”
“You almost walked into a wall.”
“There was a wall there?”
“There still is.”
“…It moved.”
I can’t keep my mouth from tilting. Good thing she’s giving the carpet her full attention.
We make it down the hall like that. Her wandering, me a half a step off her shoulder with both hands to myself, doing nothing, which is the hardest thing I’ve done in years. Every few feet she tips and corrects and I track it without touching her, ready and useless at the same time.
She gets the key in on the second try and grins like she’s won something. She has, a little.
Then it’s too quiet. The humming stopped. I want it back. I didn’t know I’d need it back until it was gone.
“You good?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You sure?”
She turns to look at me. And for one second it isn’t the wine — it’s her. Those big green eyes clear and steady and aimed right at me, like the fog cut out and left only the part that means it.
It’s almost worse than the elevator.
If we weren’t this close I’d have missed it. The small catch of breath. The way she goes still.
The hall shrinks to the foot of space between us.
I could close it. Everything in me wants to close it.Ella,I almost say, and the name gets as far as my teeth.
But not now. Not like this — not with the wine still in her.
“If you need anything,” I say instead, “I’m right across the hall.”
