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"Apparently."

She takes that in. I watch her decide not to be frightened of it, which is a thing she does now, deliberately, like flexing a muscle she found last week.

"Huh," she says. "Well. Rude of me not to even invite myself."

She crosses the kitchen and puts her hands flat on my chest, and every rational thought I own leaves the building.

I've been up since four building a case for how she'd come down here regretful, or careful, or kind, which is the worst of the three. I had answers ready for all of it.

I didn’t have an answer for this.

"You're doing the face," she says.

"What face?"

"The one where you're preparing to be gracious about something terrible." She goes up on her toes. "I'm not sorry. Adjust."

Then she kisses me, unhurried, and I let it go on longer than I should because I'm weak and it's early.

Her hand slides down my stomach.

I catch her wrist.

She stops. Doesn't pull away. Just rests her forehead against my sternum and breathes out.

"You know what's going to happen if you keep doing that."

"Yes."

"I'm going to start believing you don't want me."

"Maren, that is never going to be the case."

"Maybe." Her voice goes flat and tired. "But, you keep handing me things I never asked for. Doors, dead bolts, toothbrushes, your attention last night. And every time I offer you anything back you hold my wrist like I'm reaching for a stove."

She's right.

"It isn't that I don't want it."

"Then what is it?"

"Ask me tonight," I say.

She looks at me for a long minute. She doesn't ask about the jacket. She hasn't asked once since it hit the floor, and that's worse than if she'd torn it out of my hands, because it means she's decided to trust me on it.

I've never in my life wanted less to be trusted. I feel guilty because I still haven't told her about the envelope that's in my jacket.

Sid is on the counter, tail curled, watching us with open contempt.

She'll stop offering eventually.

I don't answer him in front of her. He knows I won't. It's why he does it.

She takes a shower. I go out to the walk with a mug and look at the frost line.

The prints are still there. Six days of cold and nothing has touched them. Small, narrow through the heel, one unhurried circle around my house, ending at my step with the toes pointed at my door.

Sid comes out through the flap and sits down beside my boot, which he's never done.