Page 52
They ate. The storm ran itself out. Mirelle had no intention of asking him to leave before it did. At some point in the second glass of wine, she stopped managing the conversation and talked about the quiet in the house and how strange it was to be forty-six and learning what she liked. He listened with both arms on the table.
“I’ve said this before.” He met her eyes. “What I told you on the beach hasn’t changed.”
She held his gaze, and he held hers. The space between them was charged with the not-doing. “You said that at the beach before we were — this.” She made the small gesture that covered the last two weeks. “It mattered then.”
“Yes.”
“It matters more now.” He went still. “I’m noting it for the record.”
“Noted.” His voice went dry, which meant he was amused. “What record?”
“The one Bexley would put in orange.”
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. No preamble. His hand over hers, warm and solid, and his eyes on her, and the candles, and the rain outside. She turned her palm up under his and held on. They stayed like that while the storm finished making its point.
The creatures arrived quietly: a few on the windowsill, the Lantern at her left, Margot, settling like candle flames. Calm. Not surge. Arrival. Tor glanced at them. Back at her. “Still calm.”
“Still calm.”
“Gerri’s data point.”
“I’m going to have to have a conversation with Gerri about how she knows things.” Mirelle’s eyes went to the windowsill. “I’d like a list. Organized, perhaps, by how alarming they are.”
“I would read that list.”
“I’d make it well. I organize things logically.” His eyes found her, and she held his gaze. “If my emotional clarity summons a raccoon, I’m moving.” Mirelle joked.
“The raccoon is already in the kitchen.”
She turned. Rowan sat on the counter by the bread box. The bread box was open. Rowan had made up her mind, and she wasn’t hiding it.
“Rowan. That’s sourdough. I was going to have that tomorrow.” The raccoon considered the sourdough with the gravity the situation deserved and selected a portion. “I’m moving.”
“You said that.”
“I have a new sincerity about it this time.”
Rowan climbed onto the top of the refrigerator to eat her portion in the elevated position it warranted. Tor took this in with the corner of his mouth fully deployed, about to say she’d chosen well.
“Don’t.”
“She chose the sourdough —”
“I said don’t.”
“— which is objectively the correct choice, if the goal is —”
“Tor.”
“Yes.”
“Stop.”
“Stopping.” He wasn’t stopping. He regarded the raccoon with what could only be described as quiet approval. “I’ll note it for the record.”
“Don’t you dare put Rowan in my orange category.”
“She demonstrates excellent judgment.”
