Chapter 10: Side by Side

We read the tablet at his kitchen table with the porch light on and the rain still coming down.

Declan scrolled.

I sat beside him with my feet in his lap, because the midwife had told me to keep them up.

Gavin asked about the labs in message after message.

Bianca always answered the same way.

Dad's doctor is waiting on results. Don't fuss, G. Just be with me.

In two years she had never once sent him a number.

"He never looked," Declan said. "He asked, and she said wait, and he waited."

"That's not an excuse."

"No. It's a diagnosis."

I took the tablet from him and turned it off.

I was tired of reading about the people who had used me.

The kitchen was warm, and the rain was loud on the roof.

Declan's hand was still on my ankle, his thumb moving slowly on the bone.

I looked at his hand.

I looked at him.

"Declan."

"Yes."

"The terms were, I stay until the hearing and then I decide."

"I remember."

"The hearing was Friday."

His thumb stopped.

"I've decided," I said.

He didn't ask what.

He stood and held out his hand, and I took it.

His bedroom was at the end of the hall, large and dark, with a window full of rain.

He turned me toward him and kissed me, long and slow, with both hands at my face.

I pulled his shirt up over his head.

He was warm and solid, with a long scar across his ribs.

I traced it with my fingertips, and his breath caught when I reached his belt.

"Camille, I want you in that bed."

"I want you to take this off me first."

He undid the zipper of my dress down my spine.

He eased the fabric over my shoulders, my breasts and the round curve of my belly.

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