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“The meeting’s at eight,” he said. “I need help, if you’re willing.”

“What kind?”

“The council needs evidence from someone it trusts. It won’t take mine alone.”

“Then you need a certified copy, not a character witness.” I pulled the copied minutes toward me and found the final page again. “Betty opens at eight. The meeting starts at eight. Start without me and talk slowly. I’ll get there with the paper and explain what it means.”

He laughed. It caught him off guard, I think, because it came out rough. “I’ve never heard anybody tell me to talk slowly.”

“You’ve never been in a room where it was the plan.” I handed him the notebook. “The bed I mentioned is still upstairs. I’m offering it now.” He waited until I started up the stairs.

The stairs to my apartment came up through the back of the shop. There were fourteen, and no man had climbed them with me in eight years.

He stopped in the doorway at the top. The apartment was one room and a bathroom, and he could see all of it from there. The four-foot artificial tree I’d had since my second year stood in the corner wearing the ornaments too damaged to sell—the cardinal with the chipped beak and the glass acorn with the hairline crack. The room held two chairs, a kettle, and a bed under the window.

“It’s small,” I said.

“It’s yours,” he said, which was the correct answer and which I had not expected, and I stopped being able to be clever about anything after that.

His gaze stopped on the cardinal.

“The cardinal’s chipped.”

“It’s the damaged cardinals that never made it into Hal’s boxes and the ornaments I made badly enough to keep. Everything on there failed quality control.” I turned on the only lamp. “That’s the point of it, if you want the whole embarrassing truth. I sell people the perfect ones, I keep the broken ones, and I have avoided examining that in any depth.”

“I meant what I said in the voicemail,” he said. “I want to come back to you.”

I stopped beside the lamp. The metal shade had gone warm beneath my fingers, and I kept my hand there.

“I told you I wanted to earn your love.”

“You did.”

“I was wrong. I can earn back your trust. Love is yours to give or not.”

He held my gaze. “But I love you. I didn’t say that into a machine because you deserved to hear it while you were looking at me. I don’t expect you to say it back, and I’m not asking you to forgive me because I said it.” He stayed in the doorway, giving me all fourteen stairs and four feet of floor between us.

My fingers tightened around the lampshade. He had come back when he said he would and waited for me to open the door. His apology did not erase the parking lot. It gave me something I could test. “Good,” I said. “Because I’m not ready to forgive you.”

“I know.”

“But I’m willing to see what you do tomorrow.”

“Then watch.” He stayed in the doorway. I crossed the four feet between us and kissed him with my hand fisted in his collar. He made a sound against my mouth that I intended to keep.

We made it the four warm steps from the doorway to the bed without letting go. His jacket landed over the back of a chair and slid to the floor when the chair declined the responsibility. I worked the buttons of my flannel while he pulled his shirt over his head. His hands were cold when they found my waist. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“You stood outside in December. Cold hands were a foreseeable consequence.”

He laughed against my neck. The sound faded when his thumb traced my collarbone and stayed there. He kissed the spot beneath it, then lifted his head to look at me. “Still with me?”

“Very with you.”

His mouth trailed lower. He pushed the open flannel aside and closed his lips around one nipple, warm and deliberate, drawing a soft pull that made my breath hitch. His tongue circled, then sucked gently, then harder when I arched into him. My fingers threaded into his hair and held him there while he gave the other the same slow, thorough attention until both were tight and aching and I was restless beneath him.

He moved lower still, kissing down the center of my stomach. His hands slid to my thighs and spread them open with careful pressure. He settled between them and tasted me—slow, focused strokes that made my hips lift without permission. I moaned, quiet at first, then louder when he found the exact rhythm that made my legs tremble. He stayed there until I was gasping his name and tugging at his shoulders, needing more than his mouth.

He reached for his wallet, tore the packet open, and rolled the condom on with quick, practiced hands. Then he braced himself above me, the blunt head of him pressing against me. He pushed in slowly, inch by careful inch, and stopped the moment he was fully seated, forehead resting against mine.