Page 87 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“Stay.”

“I can’t. I have to work.”

I lift my head. “I thought you were on vacation.”

A flash moves through her eyes, and she laughs it off immediately. “Ain’t no rest for the wicked.”

I let it go. I don’t have to know every piece of her yet, and right now I’d rather hold on than pry.

“Stay,” I say again, tighter this time, my arms not loosening even a little.

“Don’t you have practice?”

“Stay. Five minutes.”

She laughs, already leaning back into me despite herself, her fingers still moving through my hair. “You’ll be late.”

“No.” I press my face harder into her, breathing the scent of her. “Actually, not five minutes. That isn’t enough. Stay forever. I’ll build a small fortress out of this room and we’ll never leave it. I’ll have provisions sent up. We’ll live like hermits.”

“What about hockey?” She’s laughing outright now. “You’d have to leave sometimes.”

“Nope.” I shake my head against her, feel her stomach tighten under her laughter, and mean it more than I’ve meant almost anything in my life so far.

This is how it happens. This is how men set fire to entire kingdoms. Is this what falling in love feels like? What is this woman doing to me?

She goes still against me, her fingers slowing in my hair like she’s waiting to see what I do with the silence.

"Or," I say. “We can run away instead. Go off the grid. Watch sunsets in an empty field.” I tip my head back so I can see her face. “And every Fourth of July, we’ll lie in the grass and watch the fireworks like a couple of kids, and I’ll tell you they’re all for you.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Her hand goes still in my hair, and the whole room holds still with it.

And then, like turning on a light, she breaks the silence, her voice breezy on purpose. “That watch is a knockoff, by the way.”

“I know.”

“So I could probably just have it.”

“No.”

“Worth a shot.”

“You can keep the hat, though.”

She laughs, then bends down and presses her lips against my hair.

“Okay,” she says, flopping onto me on the loveseat. “Five more minutes.”

19

ERICA

Chapter playlist:

NYC Larceny — Daniel Pemberton

Tanya is crying into a throw pillow, and the worst part is, I get it.

“I’m a terrible person,” she says.