Page 12 of The Silent Hour

“You don’t need to thank me for that,” he replied.

"I know. You didn't have to do that."

Ethan paid with cash, slipping bills across the counter without counting them. The older man handed him change, which Ethan placed in the tip jar without checking the amount.

"She needs to eat too," he said simply.

The counterman disappeared into the kitchen, and the smell hit her first—garlic and ginger and something smoky I couldn't name, layered over the deep, oily warmth of the wok. I watched the steam curl from the kitchen door in pale ribbons that dissolved into the fluorescent glare.

A plastic bag materialized on the counter, heavy and translucent, the containers stacked inside. Ethan gathered it with one hand, the paper bag with my new book tucked beneath his other arm, and turned toward the door.

I followed him out into the cooling afternoon, the heat of the day already breaking apart. The sky had gone a bruised, heavy gray at the edges, and the air smelled like ozone and concrete and the faint, sharp sweetness of the food in his hand. A breeze lifted the loose strands of hair at my temples and carried the scent of him.

He didn't offer me the bag. He didn't offer me anything. He just walked beside me down the sidewalk with the practiced ease of a man who understood the weight of his own company and the weight of mine and seemed content to carry both.

I matched his stride.

The book pressed against my ribs through the paper bag, and the plastic of the takeout swung gently with each of his steps, and somewhere behind them the door of the Chinese place chimed once and fell silent.

I didn't know what this was.

I didn't know what to call it. I only knew that for the first time in a long time, the ordinary day I'd planned had folded itself quietly away, and I wasn't going to go looking for it. Ethan's shoulder brushed mine as we rounded the corner toward the lot where he'd parked, and I let it.

The rain held off.

For now.

CHAPTER FOUR

WE SPREAD EVERYTHING across the glass coffee table: glossy orange chicken lacquered in its own sauce, pork dumplings slick with chili oil, Kung Pao with extra peanuts, salt and pepper shrimp still crackling from the fryer, sweet and sour chicken with an extra container of sauce on the side for Toya, and enough rice to feed considerably more than three people.

"You know there are only three of us, right?" I asked Ethan.

He looked at the spread, taking it in with the calm satisfaction of a man who had done exactly what he intended. "Leftovers."

"That's your defense?"

"It's a strong one."

I wrinkled my nose. Chinese food never tasted good to me re-heated. Toya on the other hand made a noise of agreement around the dumpling she'd already shoved into her mouth, cheek pushed out with it.

She had woken shortly after we got back and made herself human—hair re-pinned, face washed—still in her clothes from the night before as she’d been passed out, and he wasn’t going to change her without consent.

The three of us ate with chopsticks, passing cartons back and forth, Toya reaching across me twice without asking. The salt and pepper shrimp disappeared first. Outside, the city made its usual noise, and in here we made ours—Toya's laugh bouncing off the high ceilings, Ethan's quieter and more deliberate, mine somewhere in between.

She interrogated him about where he'd taken me all day, leaning forward with her elbows on the glass and her chopsticks pointed at him like a prosecutor. He gave her just enough. At some point she looked between us and shook her head, the crooked grin spreading slow.

"Y'all look like the poster for one of those moody-ass romance films. It's weird."

"Please eat your food."

"I'm just saying." The chopsticks swung between us. "It's been one day."

I narrowed my eyes at her. She smiled sweetly and reached over and took one of my dumplings off my plate.

A bottle of wine appeared on the table, and then a glass was poured for Toya, for Ethan, and then something else was set in front of me—sparkling, with ice, without my asking.

I was starting to notice a lot of things about him.