They Thought I Was Out Cold, So I Let All Four Keep Going novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: She Said No at Breakfast

Verena refuses the offer in front of all four, then Jonas corners her in the pantry; she overhears Tobias say he will only watch tonight.

I read the pencil line twice and set the page face down on the table.

"Who wrote this?" I asked.

"Not me," Felix said, and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"It's Tobias's handwriting," Jonas said.

Tobias folded his newspaper and laid it beside his cup.

"The bank wants an answer by noon," he said. "That part is true."

"And the other part?"

"The other part is advice."

"From the man in my brother's chair," I said.

Nobody breathed.

Tobias looked at me for the first time that morning, and his grey eyes gave away nothing at all.

"Yes," he said. "From him."

I took the pen from Felix's breast pocket.

I wrote a single word across the figure, in capital letters, and slid the page back to the middle of the table.

NO.

"I'm keeping my brother's share," I said. "Pass it round and let everyone see."

Stefan read it and let out a short laugh.

"Well," he said. "That's clear."

Jonas didn't laugh.

He was watching Tobias, and Tobias was watching me, and nobody in the room was watching the offer.

"Fine," Tobias said. "You stay. You take the room you're in and you keep to the family wing until the road opens."

"Is that an order?"

"It's the only room with heat after nine."

I stood and carried my plate to the sink.

I was not going to let him see my hands shake.

Stefan was at the counter before I reached it, drying a pan.

"Hey," he said, softer. "Don't leave angry."

He put his hand on the small of my back.

It was a friendly hand, the same hand that had steadied me on the slope when I was nineteen, and it slid down two inches and stayed there.

"Stefan."

"Sorry," he said, and grinned, and did not move it. "Old habit. You were always falling over something."

I took a step away, and his palm trailed across my hip before it dropped.

Then Tobias called him to the office, and the two of them went out together.

I was alone in the kitchen with Jonas.

"I need the flour from the pantry," I said, which was not true.

"I'll get it."

"I can reach it."

"You can't. Top shelf."

He followed me into the pantry anyway and pulled the door nearly shut behind us.

The room was cold and narrow and smelled of onions and coffee beans.

I reached for the shelf.

Jonas reached over my shoulder at the same moment, and his chest met my back.

I stopped.

He did not step away.

His arm stayed raised above my head and his other hand settled on the shelf beside my hip, so that I stood inside the frame of his body.

I could feel him breathing against my hair.

"Hold your breath, little Brandl," he said very quietly. "Last night you passed out on the stairs."

"I remember it differently."

"Do you?"

His thigh pressed forward between mine, an inch, no more.

I felt the whole long line of him at my back, and the hard shape of him against my hip, and I told myself it was the torch he kept in his trouser pocket.

It was not a torch.

I turned my face toward his.

His blue eyes dropped to my split lip, and he lifted one hand and touched it with his thumb.

Heat ran straight through me.

"Say it," he whispered. "Say it, and I'll stop being polite."

I had a whole answer ready.

I did not say it.

I looked at his mouth, and he looked at mine, and the pantry went completely still.

Then I heard Stefan's voice somewhere near the door.

"Jonas, the road crew radio's on."

Jonas swore, softly and fluently.

I put both palms flat against his chest and pushed.

"Careful," I said. "If you stand that close, I might faint on you."

His mouth twitched.

"I'd catch you," he said. "I'd catch you every time."

"I'll remember that."

He took the flour from the top shelf, put it in my hands, and walked out without looking back.

I stood among the onions with my pulse going wild.

I waited a long moment before I trusted my legs.

I carried the flour toward the kitchen and stopped at the door.

The voices came from the corridor to the office, low and clear.

"You can't keep her in the wing and pretend nothing happened," Stefan said.

"I'm not pretending anything," Tobias said.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Tonight it isn't me," Tobias said. "I'll watch."

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