Chapter 5: Thirty Days

I lived above my bakery, in two rooms with a slanted ceiling and a radiator that knocked all night.

I brought Teo up the back stairs at midnight and he had to duck under the doorframe.

"Rules," I said, and dropped my keys in the bowl.

"Already?"

"Thirty days, like I said. You sleep on the couch. I sleep in my room with the door shut. We don't touch."

"Not at all?"

"Not a finger."

He looked at the couch, which was a short green velvet one I'd bought at a yard sale.

"I'm six feet tall."

"Then your feet will hang off the end, and you'll think about your choices."

His mouth twitched.

"One more rule," I said. "Neither of us asks why. Not why you went in that room, and not why I need thirty days. We find out as we go."

I watched his face when I said it.

He went very still for half a second.

Then he nodded.

"Fine," he said. "No why."

I turned on the kitchen light and tried not to stare at his right hand.

The red line across the palm had swelled into a welt, shiny and raw where the gun had pinched the skin.

"That needs cream."

"It's fine."

"Sit."

He sat on a kitchen chair, and I found the tin of salve I used for oven burns and knelt on the tile in front of him.

I took his hand.

It was big and warm, with a pale scar across the knuckles and short, clean nails.

I smoothed the salve over the welt with my thumb, slowly, from the heel of his hand to the base of his fingers.

His breath stopped.

"That's touching," he said, rough.

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