Chapter 14: Terms

At eight that evening the bakery downstairs was selling off the last of the bread.

Piper had been asleep on Owen's sofa for two hours with the lamp on and the orange bottle on the top shelf.

He and I had been sent down for something she could eat.

Three people stood in the queue behind us.

Owen leaned in beside me at the glass case.

"It's after noon," he said, very low. "I'm allowed to say it."

"Say what?"

"That since Wednesday I've wanted you on that counter, with your jumper off and my mouth on you until you forget what day it is."

The woman behind us was studying the croissants.

I kept my eyes on the baker and my voice level.

"There are people behind us."

"I noticed," Owen said. "That's why I'm saying it here."

He paid for a loaf of rye and a bag of rolls and held the door for me.

My face was hot all the way to the first landing.

I stopped on the stairs and turned around, and he stopped one step below me, which put our eyes level.

"I'm still angry at you," I said.

"Good."

"I mean it. You let me tell you everything and you didn't say a word for days."

"I know."

"So these are my terms."

He stood still on his step and let me have them.

"No more secrets. Not kind ones, not ones you think I can't take. If it touches me, you say it that day."

"Yes."

"Second. I stay free to say no. To you, to Piper's emergencies, to your father, to all of it. If I say no, nobody gets to call that cruel."

"Yes."

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