Chapter 14: The Tab

I heard Neil's voice from the service stairs before I saw him.

It was three in the afternoon, and the dining room was closed between lunch and dinner.

I stopped on the last step with the folder in my hand.

Neil stood among the stacked chairs with his coat still buttoned.

Hugh stood across from him with a clipboard, and he did not look up from it.

"I only want to say one thing to you," Neil said. "Man to man."

"You've said several."

"A month, no strings. She told me that herself, this morning."

Hugh turned a page on the clipboard.

"You think you know what that means," Neil said. "It means she's counting the days until she leaves, and you're the place she's waiting."

"Mr. Brandwell."

"She'll get bored of you. She gets tired, and then she goes back to being decent about things. She's always decent in the end."

Hugh finally looked at him.

"She can leave this building any minute she likes," he said. "I never wanted her to stay because she had nowhere else."

"That isn't an answer."

"It isn't meant to be one for you."

"What do you want from her?"

"Nothing she hasn't offered."

Neil's mouth opened, and I came down the last step.

"Go home, Neil," I said.

He turned.

His face did something I had never seen it do, a quick flinch.

"Lydia."

"I said it, and I meant it when I said it. It was true for the first week."

"And now?"

"Now it's none of your business."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once, buttoned the top button of his coat, and walked out through the lobby doors without another word.

The room was quiet.

Hugh set the clipboard on the host stand.

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