Chapter 11: The Night Alana Stayed

"Mom, no," Hattie said from the top of the stairs.

She stood in her pajamas with her arms folded.

Alana shivered on the doorstep with rain running off her chin.

"She's the girl who posted that video," Hattie said. "She called you a kidnapper to two million people."

"I know what she did," I said.

I looked at Alana's blue lips and her bare, shaking arms.

"She's soaked through, and it's one in the morning," I said. "She sleeps on the sofa tonight. In the morning we'll see."

Cedric didn't argue.

He lifted the suitcase out of her hand and carried it up the stairs himself.

"I'll stay," he said to me, low. "On the floor, if I have to."

"You don't have to."

"I know," he said. "I'm staying anyway."

I gave Alana a towel and my dry clothes and sent her to the bathroom.

Hattie went to her room, shut the door, and left it open a crack.

In the kitchen I put the kettle on.

Cedric stood beside me at the counter and said nothing.

The water ran in the bathroom, and the kettle began to tick.

He took the mugs down from the shelf and put them in front of me.

His hand brushed my wrist.

It was a small contact, clumsy and accidental, with a sleeve between us.

Neither of us moved.

I felt my pulse in the place he had touched.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm cold."

"You're not cold."

I turned my head.

He was very close.

He smelled of paper and tea, with rain in his collar.

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