Chapter 11: Rule One

On Saturday night I sat at Eli's bench in the loft with a pencil and drew a treehouse for a six-year-old.

It had a long ladder.

It had a trapdoor and a rope for a bucket, because I had promised.

Rain ran down the window, and the shop below us was dark.

I heard him on the stairs before I saw him.

He came up with two bowls of soup and put one at my elbow.

"You've been up here all day," he said.

"I said I'd draw it."

He looked over my shoulder at the treehouse, and then at me.

"It's good," he said. "It's very good. I would like to build that."

"I want to talk about the rule."

His whole body changed. He set his bowl down on the bench very carefully.

"Okay."

"I looked up how long a divorce takes. It could be a year."

"I can wait a year."

"I can't," I said.

I stood up.

I took the two steps between us and put my hand flat on his chest, over the flannel, and felt his heart going hard under my palm.

"Rule one, Ms. Fletcher," he said, low. "Nothing until the last page is signed."

"I wrote the rule. I can amend it."

"You said not in the workshop."

"I'm upstairs."

He laughed, once, and it shook through his whole chest and into my hand.

Then he stopped laughing and looked at me.

"Say it plain," he said. "So I know you mean it."

"I want you to fuck me, Eli."

He took my face in both hands and kissed me.

It was not the careful kiss from the truck.

He backed me against the bench.

I pulled his shirt out of his jeans and got my hands on his bare skin, hot and wide and ridged with old scars.

He made a rough sound into my mouth.

I got the buttons of my blouse open myself.

He pushed it off my shoulders, and the lamp light touched me, and he looked.

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