Chapter 20: Fifteen Weeks

Elliot's house had four bedrooms, a yard with a maple in it, and a kitchen that no one had cooked in for two years.

I moved in on a Sunday with Biscuit, my mother's quilt and a single suitcase.

"You can have any room," Elliot said at the door. "You can have the whole upstairs."

"I'm not here because I have nowhere to go," I said.

"I know."

"I have a lease in Yvette's name, paid through the month. I could walk back there tonight."

"I know that, too."

"I'm here because I picked it."

He took the suitcase out of my hand and put it down on the hall floor.

Then he looked at me for a long moment, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

"Thank you for picking it," he said.

I was fifteen weeks pregnant, and I had not slept properly since the ballroom.

I set my mother's quilt over a kitchen chair and said it before I lost my nerve.

"Constance told me she was in no hurry."

"I heard her."

"She thinks Posy will fold before anything is filed. She thinks four months is plenty."

"Posy's lawyer files in the morning," Elliot said. "Constance doesn't know. I'd like her to learn it from a clerk."

"And Dalton is out on bail, and my money stays frozen until a judge says otherwise."

"Then we don't wait for her to get bored." He took a pan down from a hook. "Eat first."

That night Elliot cooked for me.

He burned the garlic.

I ate the whole plate and told him it was the best thing I had ever had, and he laughed until he had to put his fork down.

I washed and he dried.

At the sink, with the water running, I felt him step up behind me.

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