After.
The lamp still on. The sheets destroyed. Three bodies tangled on them. The air thick with heat and sweat and heavy silence.
Maya is between us. Her head on Cole's chest. Her back against mine. My arm over her waist, my hand finding Cole's hip on the other side of her. Cole's fingers lace through mine over her hip, the grip light enough that I feel every small adjustment.
Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Sweat dries on my shoulder. Maya's breathing slows against Cole's chest.
Her breathing evens out. Sleep drags her under. Her eyes close in a bed with an open door. No count. No lock check. No exit map.
"Stay," I say into her hair.
"I'm staying. My boots are downstairs."
"I'll line them up in the morning."
"You always line them up."
"Disordered footwear is a personal failing."
"Dante Voss has opinions about shoe placement."
Cole laughs. The sound rumbles through his chest, into her body, into mine.
"The letter," Maya says. Quieter. The sleep receding for one more sentence. "I need to deal with the letter."
"Tomorrow," Cole says.
"I'll call Richard in the morning."
"We'll figure it out," I say.
She's asleep within minutes. Cole follows shortly after, his breathing slowing, his hand still in mine across her body. Six years of reaching for each other in the dark, except the lamp is on and Maya is between us.
I stay awake.
Maya breathes against Cole's chest, her back warm against mine. My father wants another dinner Tuesday. Her father is already in Briarcliff.
Downstairs, my phone is on the counter. Marco's name in my contacts. Tuesday waiting four days away. The man whose infrastructure I promised not to use sits in my phone while the man who hurt Maya breathes the same air as this city.
My hand stays open against Maya's waist instead of reaching for the phone downstairs.
Cole asked me not to call. Maya asked me not to call. I said I wouldn't. I said the restraint exists because she asked.
But the man who broke her ribs is in Briarcliff, and my father arrives Tuesday, and the distance between the promise I made and the phone on the counter downstairs is shrinking with every breath she takes against my chest.
Chapter 24
Cole
Dante leaves at six in a black suit and no tie, dressed like a man walking into a dinner he didn’t choose with a person he can’t refuse. He stands at the edge of the hallway adjusting his cuffs, his jaw tight, his eyes flat, his hands too precise on the fabric. We won the regional semifinal Saturday. He scored twice. On the ice, nothing about the last two weeks shows.
"Don't wait up," he says.
"We'll wait up," Maya says from the counter. Her spot.
"It could go late."
"We'll wait up."
