Chapter 11: Her Terms

Jerome rented the room above the closed tool yard on the east side, and Odile's men had never heard of it.

We drove there at midnight with the brass key in my fist and my father's toolbox in the trunk.

The bank would open at nine.

Until then, there was a mattress on the floor, a hot plate, a window that looked out at a chain-link fence, and the two of us.

I stood in the doorway with my bag on my shoulder.

"Full name," I said.

He smiled. He was standing by the hot plate with his coat still on.

"Jerome Werner."

"Maisie Corrigan."

I put the bag down.

"I'm not going to sleep," I said.

"You should."

"I know I should. I've been awake since a grave got dug up. I've cried on a porch.

Half of what I was is gone, and I don't know what's left."

He took his coat off, slowly, and hung it on the nail by the door.

"What do you want, Maisie?"

"I want to do one thing tonight that nobody lied to me about."

He crossed the room.

He stopped a few inches from me and looked down, and I could see him deciding whether to touch me.

I took hold of his shirt with both hands and pulled.

He kissed me hard.

His mouth was hot, and his hand went to the back of my neck.

He backed me against the wall until the plaster was cold through my sweater.

I pushed his shirt up over his ribs.

He had a long scar down his left side that I hadn't known about, and I put my mouth on it.

"Fuck," he breathed.

"That's the idea."

"Maisie."

"Take this off."

He pulled my sweater over my head and dropped it.

His hands went to my waist, and then up, over my bra, with his thumbs across my nipples.

I heard myself make a sound I hadn't made in a year.

Gregory had never touched me like he needed to.

Jerome did.

He unhooked my bra and stripped it off and bent and took one nipple in his mouth, hard, and my knees went.