Chapter 9: Jerome's Vote

Jerome's POV

I didn't sleep.

Maisie took the couch in her father's living room with the guard's phone under her pillow and the bandaged hand tucked against her chest.

I took the porch steps.

We had photographed every message on the guard's phone before midnight, and Maisie had said, "Poppy," three times, quietly.

At two in the morning the street was empty, and the streetlight at the corner buzzed.

She had kissed me.

I hadn't planned it, and I had kissed her back, and I couldn't undo that.

I could still taste the dust from the pit.

For three days I had told myself I was here for Frank.

He was my godfather, and when the board voted me out, his was the vote that didn't come.

I had never asked him why.

Then, two weeks before he died, he had left a message on my phone, and I hadn't been able to play it.

It was nine minutes long. I'd looked at the number every night.

Behind me, the screen door opened.

I didn't turn around.

"You're going to freeze," Maisie said.

"I've been colder."

She sat down on the step beside me, in one of her father's flannel shirts, with her knees pulled up.

I could smell soap and cold air.

"You're on guard duty," she said.

"I'm sitting."

"You're sitting like a guard."