Chapter 7: The Couch

I called the police first, and then, with my thumb hovering, I texted Ansel.

Someone tried to open my safe. They're gone. I'm fine.

He was at my back door in fourteen minutes.

He wore gray sweatpants and a Buckingham Freight sweatshirt, and he was out of breath.

"I told you I'm fine," I said.

"You said someone broke in." He pushed past me and swept the workroom with his eyes. "That's not fine."

The officers had come and gone by then.

They took a report and photographed the scratches. One of them shrugged and said it was probably kids after the cash.

Ansel crouched at the window and picked up the loose screen.

"Careful," I said.

The glass above the sill had a long crack I hadn't noticed.

He ran his palm along it and swore.

A thin line of blood welled across the heel of his hand.

"Sit," I said.

"It's nothing."

"I'm not arguing about this at three in the morning. Sit."

He sat on the stool by my workbench.

I got the first aid kit from under the sink, and I took his hand in both of mine.

His skin was warm. His pulse beat against my thumb.

I cleaned the cut with a wet cloth, and he watched me do it.

His palm was broad and rough at the base of the fingers. I had never touched it like this, only in the dark, only to hold on.

I pressed the gauze down, and my thumb slid up to the inside of his wrist.

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