Chapter 6: The Sign-In Sheet

We slept in the gym that night, three feet apart on the folded wrestling mats, with a gray blanket each.

I didn't sleep.

I listened to him breathe in the dark and counted the ways I had just broken my own rule.

At five in the morning the power came back with a hum.

Every light in the building blinked on at once.

Cal sat up with his hair standing on end and a crease from the mat across his cheek.

He looked at me.

I looked at the clipboard.

"Give me the pen," I said.

He gave it to me.

I took the sheet off the nail and found yesterday's line.

Under the date I wrote 7:15 to 8:30, and beside it I wrote roof and tarp.

"One hour and fifteen minutes," I said. "That counts."

"Thank you."

"Everything after eight-thirty doesn't."

His face went still.

"I wasn't going to ask-"

"I know you weren't. I'm saying it out loud so there's no way you can hear it wrong later."

I tapped the paper with the end of the pen.

"This sheet is the only thing in this building I'll never lie on."

"Your hours are for work."

"I don't sign for a night on the floor, and I don't sign for a kiss, and I don't sign for being near me."

"All right."

"If I ever did, you couldn't know whether I'd done it because you earned it or because I wanted you."

He looked at me for a while.

"That's a very good rule," he said.

"I made it up at six this morning."

"It's still good."

I almost smiled.

"There's another one," I said.

"Nothing about us goes through that door in front of the kids."

"Not a look, not a hand on a back."

"Understood."

"And if this happens between us, you don't get a single break in that ring. I will work you twice as hard."

"Dee," he said.

"What?"

"Are you saying that for me, or for you?"

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