Three, Two, One, I'm Gone novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Two Boys on a Dock

I did not go up to my apartment.

I stood in the lobby with my phone in my hand until my knees stopped shaking.

The staff drifted away in twos and threes, whispering, and a few of them touched my arm on their way past.

The woman from claims pressed a granola bar into my hand without a word.

Then the elevator opened, and Wade came out of it alone, in his overcoat, with his keys already out.

"Walk with me," he said. "Please."

"Where?"

"Anywhere that isn't here."

Outside, snow was coming down in thick, slow flakes.

We walked two blocks without talking.

He took me to a diner with a red neon sign and sat me in a booth by the window, and ordered two coffees and a plate of fries without asking what I wanted.

I was too tired to be annoyed.

"Eat," he said.

I ate three fries.

"You went white up there," I said. "On the balcony. Why?"

He turned his cup a quarter turn on the saucer.

"I don't like watching anybody get cornered in my lobby."

"That wasn't it."

"It's what I'll say tonight."

I stared at him.

"That's a strange thing to admit."

"I'm told I'm very strange before ten a.m. and after six p.m.," he said.

I should have pushed him.

I was tired, and he was kind, and the fries were hot, so I let it go.

"Paige looked at you," I said. "On her way out. Did you see that?"

His thumb stopped moving on the cup.

"I saw her look at the security desk."

"No. She looked up. She smiled at you."

"I'd rather not talk about her tonight, Delia."

His voice was level.

His hand, I noticed, was not.

It was a large hand, with the knuckles red from the cold.

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