Three, Two, One, I'm Gone novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: In Daylight

Wade's POV

Delia was due at eight, and at a quarter to I had moved the plates twice.

I do not cook.

I had ordered from the place on Lake Road and put the food on my own dishes, which was as close as I could get.

The house had four bedrooms and one man in it, and I had known for years that was wrong.

On Tuesday I had sent a chair to her apartment.

She had a stool and a bed, and I had seen her eat toast on the floor.

She texted me: *Was that you?*

I wrote: *Yes.*

*I didn't ask for a chair.*

*I know.*

She sent back a photograph of herself sitting in it with one foot up on the seat, and no caption.

I had looked at it more times than I would say aloud.

Since the afternoon she had been quiet, her phone face down by her hand.

Something had come in while I worked at her counter, and she had answered it without a word to me.

I did not ask.

If it was Grant, she would tell me when she was ready, and I would not make her ready sooner.

Eleven years ago I stood in my father's driveway and told a nineteen-year-old in a borrowed suit to get out.

He went.

I thought the hard part was saying it.

The hard part was every Sunday after that, with my thumb over a number I had saved under one letter and never dialed.

The doorbell rang at eight.

She stood on my step in her work coat with her color back and her hair damp from the wind.

"You cooked," she said, looking past me at the table.

"I ordered."

"You used plates."

"That's the cooking."

She laughed, and I felt it in my chest.

We ate most of it.

She told me about the claims backlog, and I told her the doctor had been right about three days in bed, and neither of us said anything about Grant.

When the plates were empty, she put her fork down and looked at me directly.

"You're being careful with me."

"Yes."

"Stop."

"No."

"Wade."

"You set terms for me in your grandmother's kitchen," I said. "Here are mine. You tell me when you want me to stop being careful. In daylight, with your clothes on, with nothing else in your head."

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