Chapter 4: The Shelf

On Tuesday evening Darius showed up at my door with a drill, a level and a bag of brackets.

I had not asked him for any of it.

"You said the loft looked bare," he said.

"I said that once, on the phone, on Sunday night."

"Yes, ma'am."

He looked down at his boots and rubbed the back of his neck.

Behind him on the walkway, Tavon leaned over the rail with two pizza boxes balanced on one hand.

"I drove," Tavon said. "He couldn't carry the shelves and the pizzas and his feelings at the same time."

"Tavon," Darius said.

"I'm saying nothing. I'm a delivery service."

I let them both in.

The loft was a small square room above the stairs with a sloped ceiling and one window.

I had meant to make it an office.

Darius had to duck to cross it.

His head cleared the slope by two inches at the low end and brushed the beam at the other.

When he stood at the wall with the level held up, his shoulders filled the space between the window and the door.

I stood at the top of the stairs with a slice of pizza and stared at his back.

He was too big for the room.

I kept looking at the width of him against the plaster, and at his arms stretching up to mark the studs.

I thought about the mattress, and the weight of him pressing me into it.

I ate my pizza very slowly.

"I need somebody to steady the ladder," Darius said.

"I can do that."

I took hold of it with both hands.

He climbed, and the aluminum shook under his weight, and I leaned into it with my shoulder.

My claw clip had slipped loose, and I felt my hair slide down on one side.

Above me the drill whined and stopped.

"Hold on, your hair," he said.

He came halfway down the ladder and reached out.

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