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“You’ve already invited Fernando to sleep in here. We can put him between us as a buffer.”
“I don’t think so.”
He rose to his feet. “If someone is sleeping on the floor, it’s me. You take the bed.”
I scoffed. “No.”
He ran his hands through his hair, and shot me his frustrated scowl. “Why not?”
“That’s ridiculous. I am capable of sleeping on the floor.”
“I know you’re capable, Lily, that’s not the point.”
We stared at each other across the bed, trapped in another stalemate, stuck in a competition I didn’t understand and had no energy left to untangle.
“I’m sleeping on the floor,” I said. “You do whatever you want.”
“Why won’t you let me help you?” His voice rose and he clutched his fingers into fists.
“I don’t want or need anything from you. From anyone.”
“You are the most frustrating woman in the world.”
“Me? It’s you!” Okay, I didn’t mean he was a frustratingwoman; he was simply frustrating.
He sighed and his shoulders dropped. “You are the strongest, most independent person I know. It’s something I admired about you from the first day we met. But sometimes a person needs help—even the most capable, amazing person who ever existed.”
“I didn’t say I was the most amazing person ever.”
“I know,” he said, circling the bed to meet me. “I said it, and not with some ulterior motive. I mean it.”
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re Silas Huxley.”
He reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers brushed my cheek, and warmth bloomed across my skin.
“You stole the senior librarian position from me,” I said. “You stole the life I worked so hard to build for myself. I see these flashes of anger, and that’s the Silas I know. You…you can’t be nice to me.”
“I am mad,” he said. “I’ve been so angry at you for so long. You used your position as senior librarian in exactly the way I have—to choose your missions. You took one from me, the worst you could have taken.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “What mission?”
“Seventy years ago, it was me who was supposed to go to Marshmallow to investigate the disappearances. I’m mad at you because you forced me not to go, and you got yourself killed. I’ve had to live with the fact that it should have been me.”
I didn’t remember taking the mission from him. I said, “I’m sorry.”
He reached for my hand. I let him.
“There’s something about you, Lily. You affect me in a way no one else ever has. I didn’t realize until you were gone that I feel that way because—”
“All clean now.” Fernando rolled out of the bathroom and leapt up onto the bed.
Silas released my hand, smiled at me,actually smiled,and climbed into bed next to Fernando. The pair of them stared at me expectantly.
In the words of the space robots fromStar Something-or-another,resistance was a worthless endeavor. I sighed and climbed in on the opposite side of Fernando. Goddess help me.
