My hand tightened around Reid’s beneath the table.
“The beginning doesn’t decide what comes after,” Elias continued. “Choice does.”
Glasses lifted.
“To those who keep choosing.”
The toast passed around the table.
Choice.
The word stayed with me all the way home.
Rain had stopped by the time we reached the yard. Harbor lights reflected in black water. The apartment windows glowed above the closed workshop.
Reid parked and came around to help with the passenger door.
I stepped out without taking his hand.
Then took it anyway.
Not because I needed balance.
Because I liked it.
Upstairs, Marlowe collapsed on the rug after his exhausting afternoon of theft.
Reid carried containers of leftovers into the kitchen.
I stood in the living room and watched him.
He opened the refrigerator.
Moved jars.
Discovered there was no room.
Rearranged everything.
Muttered at a casserole dish as if it had entered illegally.
Ordinary.
I loved him most violently in ordinary moments.
Not when he carried me from a hospital.
Not when he stood between me and my mother.
Not when he promised forever in the dark.
When he frowned at shelves and forgot where he had put the mustard.
“Cal.”
“In here.”
“I know.”
