Chapter 8: I'm Not a Prop

"Give me the envelope," I said.

We were in his kitchen at six in the evening on Wednesday, and I had been practicing the sentence all day.

Willem put down the pencil he was using to mark a cabinet.

"I can't."

"It has my name on it."

"It does."

"Then it's mine."

"Mallory gave it to me the Sunday before the airport, the night my week ended," he said.

"She said to hold it. She said, 'Give it to Ginny when I say. Not before.'"

"And you agreed."

"I agreed."

"You knew before I ever met you that she'd written me something, and you took me home on Friday anyway."

"I took you home because you had nowhere to go."

"And then you slept with me."

His jaw went hard.

"That wasn't a plan, Ginny."

"It looks like one from here."

He rubbed his face with one hand.

"Open it, if you want," he said. "It's in the truck. I won't stop you."

"But I gave her my word, and I'm not going to be the one who hands it over."

I stood there with my pulse in my ears.

Every part of me wanted to run out and rip it open.

"No," I said. "If she wanted me to read it, she could have said it to my face. She had ten years."

"That's pride."

"Yes."

"Okay," he said. "My turn."

He leaned back against the new countertop and folded his arms.

"Can I tell you what I've been thinking since Monday?"

"If you must."

"You put your hand on my chest in that restaurant, and you said, 'Edgar's watching.'"