Page 23 of You, Only You

I wasn't. I was just aware of it, sitting there in the front of my brain, refusing to leave.

The drive to my building was quiet. I kept my eyes on the road, checking mirrors more often than necessary, scanning for any sign of the dark sedan. Nothing. Either they'd made their point, or they were better at hiding now.

Beside me, Lindsey sat with her hands in her lap, very still. The stillness was wrong. Lindsey in motion was Lindsey at her best: fingers flying across a keyboard, pen tapping against a desk, hair being tucked behind her ear for the fifteenth time. Lindsey being still meant she completely shut down.

I reached for the radio. Some half-formed idea about filling the silence, giving her something that wasn't her own thoughts. My hand made it to the dial and then stopped, because what station do you put on for a woman whose apartment was justdesecrated by operatives connected to a human trafficking ring? There wasn't a preset for that.

My hand dropped. Landed on the center console. Stayed there.

A minute passed. Maybe two. The highway stretched ahead, orange-lit and empty.

Then her hand moved. Slowly. Like a decision being made in real time. Her fingers found mine on the console and just... rested there. Not holding. Not gripping. Just touching. The lightest possible contact, like she was testing whether it was allowed.

I didn't move. Didn't close my hand around hers. Didn't do anything that might break whatever this was. I just let her fingers stay where she'd put them, cool against my knuckles, and drove.

After a while, her fingers curled. Just slightly. Hooking around mine the way you'd hold onto something in the dark.

We didn't talk about it. We didn't look at each other. We just drove through the night with our hands barely connected, and I focused on the road; the silence turned into something that was almost bearable.

I pulled into my building's underground garage and put the car in park. The engine went quiet. Her fingers were still hooked around mine. I could feel her pulse against my knuckle, or maybe that was my own pulse. I wasn’t certain anymore.

She let go first. Reached for the door handle. I felt the cold fill the space where her hand had been and didn't say anything about it.

"Will." Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.

"Yeah?"

She paused, half-turned toward the door, her profile lit by the dim glow of the parking garage lights. "Thank you. For coming. And for... trying. The asking thing. I know that's not..."She trailed off, like she'd run out of the energy required to finish sentences.

"I'll get better at it."

"Yeah?"

"Probably not quickly. But I'll get better at it."

A small sound escaped her. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh. Something in between that made me want to reach for her hand again, which I did not do, apparently I was learning.

"That's weirdly reassuring," she said.

She opened the door, and we walked toward the elevator in silence, her suitcase wheels clicking against the concrete. I carried her laptop bag because she'd let me, and that felt like a concession I hadn't earned but was going to take anyway.

The elevator doors closed, and we stood side by side, watching the numbers climb. In the mirrored walls, I could see her reflection, tired, pale, wearing my jacket with the sleeves hanging past her hands. I could see my own reflection too, and the expression on my face was one I didn't recognize. Not the mask. Not the operational blankness. Something unguarded that I was going to have to deal with before she noticed it.

I looked at the floor numbers instead.

The elevator opened. She stepped out first. I followed with her bags, and showed her the guest room, and pointed out where the towels were, and told her the Wi-Fi password, and did all the normal things you do when someone stays at your home, as if any of this were normal, as if there weren't armed men out there who'd just sent a message written in her scattered belongings.

"The security system panel is by the front door," I said. "Green means armed. Red means... well, red means we have a problem, but we won't have a problem."

"Comforting."

"There's water in the fridge. Extra blankets in the closet. If you need anything..."

"I'll knock on your door. I know." She was standing in the doorway of the guest room, holding her suitcase handle, still wearing my jacket. "Will?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop hovering."