Chapter 13: The Radiator Is a Liar

I told Tyler I was going to Melina's to help with her shower favors.

He said "Have fun, babe" without looking up from the game.

I stood in the hallway with my hand on the door and thought how easy it was.

Fourth Street was a brick building with a buzzer that stuck.

I held it down firmly, as I'd been told.

The door clicked open a moment later.

The stairs smelled of radiator dust and somebody's onions.

On the third floor, a door was already open.

Winston stood in it in a gray sweater, with his glasses pushed up into his hair.

"You came," he said.

"You wrote 'bring a coat.' I brought the coat."

"The radiator is a liar. It hisses and does nothing."

He stepped back to let me in.

"Melina's at her mother's. I asked her to be, until Saturday."

"Is that all right?"

"No," he said. "But it's right."

I went in and shut the door behind me.

The apartment was spare and very neat.

A long shelf of binders ran along one wall, each labeled in his small square hand.

I took off the ring in the front hall and put it in my coat pocket, where it clicked against the tweezers.

Winston watched me do it for the second time.

"I'm not doing it to look brave," I said. "I'm doing it because I couldn't take it off at home."

"I think you're the bravest person I know."

"You know a lot of people who inspect parking garages."

"I know a handful of people," said Winston. "You're the bravest of them."

I laughed, and he crossed the room.

He kissed me against the door.

There was no table and no camera and no card telling him to.

He kissed me hard, with two days of waiting in it.

His bandaged hand lay flat on the wood beside my head, and his good one slid under my coat.

I pushed the coat off, and it fell to the floor with the tweezers and the ring.

"Signe," he said into my mouth.