Riot novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Call

My phone rang at two in the morning on Saturday, and the screen said Rhys.

I let it ring four times.

Bex was asleep in the other bed with her mouth open.

I took the phone into the bathroom and shut the door.

"You said no calls," I whispered.

"I did."

"It's two in the morning."

"I know what time it is." His voice was rough and slow. "I can't sleep."

"That's not my problem."

"No."

He did not hang up.

I sat down on the edge of the tub in Bex's sweatshirt with my bare feet on the cold tile.

"What size is it?" he asked.

"What?"

"The baby. The doctor said a size. I forgot."

"A lemon."

"A lemon," he said, and something in his throat shifted. "That's very small."

"Not to me."

He breathed out, and I heard it, long and unsteady, in my ear.

I did not say anything for a long time, and neither did he.

"Tell me about the bar," he said at last. "Where you were before it. What you do all day."

So I told him.

I told him about the oven at four in the morning and the way the whole street smelled of rye.

I told him my mother cleaned offices downtown until her knees gave out, and I had learned to knead dough from my aunt.

He listened to all of it.

At three-forty I realized I had been talking for an hour with my forehead against the cold wall.

"Goodnight, Rhys," I said.

"Goodnight, Joss."

He said it softly.

I stood in the bathroom a long time afterward with the phone against my chest.

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