Chapter 11: The Terms

Nine letters said none, and one text said make sure nobody runs the test.

We photographed every page before midnight, and Sam copied the Thursday thread to his own phone.

Neither of us could say whose baby Bree carried, so we said nothing about it and slept on the question.

The clerk stamped my answer at nine-twenty the next morning, and I stood in the courthouse corridor holding the receipt.

I texted Sam a picture of it, and he wrote back in under a minute.

I'm taking a number.

I wrote, Bring dinner.

He wrote, What kind?

I wrote, I don't care.

He came to Alder Street at seven with a bag of Thai food and set it on the kitchen counter without opening it.

I stood by the fridge in a green dress with my hair down.

"Seven," he said. "I took number seven."

"Seven's a good number."

"You said not to take a high one."

"I said that before I'd seen you carry my grandmother's rocking chair."

He crossed the kitchen in three steps.

I thought he'd kiss me, and he didn't.

He put both hands flat on the counter on either side of me, boxing me in, and said against my ear, "Say it."

"Say what?"

"The rule. I want to hear it get broken."

"No Rutledge touches me until I've signed my answer."

"And have you signed?"

"I signed it yesterday. It was stamped this morning."

"Then touch me," Sam said.

I took him by the collar and pulled his mouth to mine.

He kissed me hard, hungry and desperate.

His tongue slid against mine, hot and slow, and I made a sound in my throat that I'd never made for Kyle.

He lifted me onto the counter.

The takeout bag crashed onto the floor and neither of us looked.

I pushed his jacket off his shoulders.

He dragged the zipper at my back down, and the green dress fell around my hips, and he stopped and looked.

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