Riot novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Hallway

Reporters swarm Joss's walk-up; Rhys comes at one in the morning, holds her hair while she is sick, and is asleep against her door at dawn.

Art drove me home with his eyes on the road and his mouth shut, and I was grateful for both.

Eight people stood on the sidewalk outside my building with cameras.

"Miss Merrow! Is it true you drugged him?"

"Joss! Did you plan the baby?"

"Look this way, sweetheart!"

I got out of the car and walked straight into them with my head down.

My elbow caught a lens, and somebody swore.

Then the front door of my building flew open, and Bex came out swinging a mop.

"Back up!" she yelled. "Back up or I'll bleach every one of you!"

She is five foot eight and has red hair that she cuts herself.

The cameras backed up.

Bex dragged me inside by the sleeve, locked three locks, and stood with her back against the door, breathing hard.

"I watched it on my break," she said. "Four times. I want that man's hands in a blender."

"He didn't touch me."

"That's why I want a blender and not a fist."

She made me sit on the couch, put a blanket on me, and brought a plate of toast with a banana cut up on it.

"You told him off in front of his whole family," she said. "I'd have paid a hundred dollars to see that."

"I told him off in front of his mother."

"Who sounds nice."

"She is."

I ate the toast, and for ten minutes it was almost okay.

At one in the morning someone knocked.

Bex went to the peephole and stayed there.

"It's the jerk," she said.

I took the chain off.

Rhys stood in my hallway in the same dark shirt, with his coat over his arm and no tie.

He looked at the peeling paint, the stack of shoes by the wall, and the single light bulb.

"I had it taken down," he said. "Three platforms. It took my lawyers until midnight."

"Sabine's page still has it."

"Her account is hers. I can't reach it."

"Then why are you here?"

"There are eight people on your sidewalk," he said. "They'll be there at six, when you walk out to the clinic. I'm not leaving until I know how you get past them."

"I said nothing from your hands."

"I'm not offering my hands. I'm offering to stand in a hallway."

Bex made a noise in her throat.

"Joss," she said. "He's standing in a hallway."

"I can see that."

I started to shut the door on him.

Then my stomach turned over, and I knew exactly what was coming.

I ran for the bathroom.

I did not make it to the toilet before I was on my knees on the tile with my forehead on the cold edge of the sink.

The bathroom door banged open behind me.

A hand gathered my hair away from my face.

It was big and warm, and it did not shake until the second wave came.

"Breathe through your nose," Rhys said, low, near my ear. "Slow. That's it."

I was sick again, and the hand stayed.

It moved a little, from my hair to the back of my neck, and it rested there.

I let it.

When it was done, I sat back on my heels with my face wet and my mouth sour.

He ran a washcloth under the tap and held it out without a word.

I took it.

"This doesn't count," I said, hoarse.

"I know."

"It's not an apology."

"I know that too."

I pressed the cloth to my mouth.

He was crouched on my bathroom floor in a shirt that cost more than my rent, and he was looking at the tile instead of at me.

"How long has it been like this?" he asked.

"Since week six."

"You didn't tell anyone?"

"I told Bex."

"You told Bex and you didn't tell me."

"You had a rule."

He did not answer that.

He stood, filled a glass of water, set it on the edge of the tub, and went out without touching me again.

I had felt his hand shake while I was sick, and I told myself it was from the cold hallway.

I fell asleep on the couch around three, with Bex's blanket up to my chin.

At six-thirty, Bex shook me awake, dressed in her scrubs for the day shift.

Her eyes were huge.

"Don't scream," she said. "Come look."

I got up and went to the peephole.

Rhys was sitting on the floor of our hallway with his back against our door.

His coat was over his knees, and his head was tipped back, and he was asleep.

Through the window at the end of the hall, I could see the cameras on the sidewalk, still waiting.

He had sat between my door and the stairwell all night, and he had not told me he would.

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