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“I do not sleep well.”

“I know. I was being polite.”

He turns onto his back and brings me with him, and I end up along his left side with my cheek on his chest.

“Married married?”

The laugh gets out before I can stop it, and he has to catch me at the waist.

“Do not ruin this.”

“That’s not a no.”

Then he is quiet for longer than he usually manages.

“I’ve been careful with you.”

“I noticed.”

“You’ve got a kid. You had a whole life running before I turned up.” His hand moves once in my hair. “I kept thinking there was a version of me you wouldn’t want in the house.”

“There is.”

“Thanks.”

“It is not that one.”

The pillow he keeps behind his right shoulder is on the floor. Neither of us put it there.

His breathing slows.

I was married to a man who liked me best when I managed. I managed him in bed as well. He let me, because it was less work.

He has gone quiet beside me. He is not asleep. I know the difference, because I have been listening for it.

I do not let him have long.

Chapter thirty-eight

Colt

I’ve been lying here waiting for her to tell me that was a one-time thing.

It’s what I’d do. Take the good thing, then put a fence around it before anybody can ask for it twice. I’ve been doing some version of that since I was nineteen and somebody first explained to me what a contract year was.

She doesn’t do it.

She doesn’t move either, for a while. Her hand is on my chest and her breathing isn’t the breathing of somebody asleep, and I lie there in my own bed with my wife on my arm and wait to find out what this costs.

Then she gets up onto her elbow and looks at me.

“Do not ask me anything.”

I open my mouth.

“No,” she says.

So I don’t.