"You invited us."
"A lapse in judgment. I blame the hot water."
Dante stands first. Water cascading off his body. He grabs the towel from the rack and holds it open. I stand. Step out. He wraps it around me, pulling it tight across my shoulders, tucking the edge, his hands lingering on my arms.
I look up at him. His face close. Water still beading in his stubble.
"The drawer stays closed," I say.
"The drawer stays closed."
"And you talk to me. When the fear comes. When the instinct says call someone at two in the morning, you wake me up instead. You tell me. You let me be in the room when the decision is being made."
"I will."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"You promised last time too."
He holds my gaze. He doesn't flinch.
"I know," he says.
Behind me, Cole steps out of the tub. Wraps a towel around his waist. He squeezes my hip once.
Towels and steam and wet footprints on the tile. The shampoo bottle floating in the draining tub. The mirror clear now, showing all three of us.
We go to bed. All three. The lights stay on.
Chapter 30
Dante
Monday morning, the kitchen, the table shifted back where it belongs. Coffee on the counter. The scrape marks are gone from the floor, but I still see where the table was. Saturday is in the room anyway—the confrontation, the punishment, and last night, the bath, the wet tile, the towel around her shoulders, the lights that stayed on.
Maya is at her spot with her tea, looking at me the way she looked at me in the beginning. Measuring. Evaluating. Deciding how much access to grant.
At the stove, Cole makes eggs. He moves between the pan and the cutting board with the steady rhythm that means breakfast happens even when nobody knows where to put their hands.
"I need to do something," I say. "And I need both of you in the room when I do it."
Maya's tea stops halfway to her mouth. Cole turns from the stove.
"What?" Maya says.
"I'm calling Marco."
The name lands differently now. Cole has known Marco since we were teenagers. Shook his hand at Senior Night while Marco stood in a charcoal overcoat and told Cole the family appreciates loyalty. Took his card. Cream stock, embossed, a single line of text. Marco is a face, a voice, the brother who pressed his forehead against mine on the silver carpet and said something in Italian that stays between us.
"Marco still thinks I'll use him. He still thinks I'm a phone call away." I look at her. Then at Cole. "I need to end it. On speaker."
Cole turns the burner off. Maya sets her tea down.
"On speaker," Maya says.
I pull out my phone, scroll to the letter M, and press call.
