Chapter 21: Her Terms

Geoffrey pulled the sheet over both of us so fast that the lamp fell off the nightstand.

"Don't come in!" I yelled.

"I'm not coming in," Maddie called back. "I'm standing in the hallway with my eyes closed."

"Then why are you still there?"

"Because I'm emotionally invested."

I could hear her breathing through the door.

Geoffrey lay on his back with the sheet to his chin and the face of a man giving a deposition.

"Good evening, Ms. Gaffney," he said.

There was a long silence.

Then Maddie shrieked, "He SPEAKS!" and ran, and the front door slammed behind her.

I put my face in the pillow and laughed until I couldn't breathe.

Geoffrey watched me, and the corner of his mouth went up.

"She took her charger," he said.

"She did not take her charger. She came to hear it."

"I'll write her a note of thanks."

"Please don't."

In the morning I made the eggs, for once.

He sat at my tiny table with his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and a mug of terrible coffee in his hands.

He drank it without a flicker, which I counted as love.

"Don't look so pleased," I said.

"I'm not."

"You are. You're thinking this fixed something."

"No," he said. "It didn't."

"Good, because it didn't."

I sat down across from him and put my plate between us.

"Last night wasn't forgiveness," I said. "I'm saying it now so we never argue about it later."

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