Chapter 16: Hold This

I answered Brett from the top of the steel stair.

Printing seating charts. His office has the good printer. Home in twenty.

Tony read it over my shoulder and handed me the envelope to carry.

"Take it," he said. "I want it with the person who'll keep it."

"I'm only borrowing it."

"Borrow it forever."

Brett was sitting on our staircase in the dark when I came in.

His phone lay face up on his knee.

"Seating charts," he said.

"For Lila's party."

"At eleven at night. At his lumber yard."

"The printer in his house is broken, and the one in his office isn't." I hung up my coat. "Do you want to see them?"

He looked up at me.

His eyes were red, and I saw the tears come before he knew they were coming.

"I just can't lose you, babe," he said.

"You're not losing me."

"I feel like I am. You're gone all the time. You flinch when I touch you."

I sat on the step beside him and let him put his head on my shoulder.

It was the hardest thing I had done in weeks, and I did it without moving a muscle in my face.

"I'm tired," I said. "It's the party. It's Lila. It's the hospital."

"Come to my firm's dinner Wednesday. My boss wants to meet you. Please."

"All right."

"The Hartwell Lumber account is half our book, so Tony will be there with his dad." He wiped his nose on his wrist. "Just be normal, okay?"