Chapter 5: Napkin Terms

Lexie ran the tap and rinsed her mouth.

Then she turned around and looked Cillian right in the eye.

"Almost seven weeks," she said.

Cillian didn't say anything.

He slid down the cabinet and sat on the kitchen floor, his knees nearly up to his beard.

Ciro was looking at me.

He looked at my face, then my glass of water, then the crackers, then my face again.

"Trixie," he said.

It was the first time he'd used my first name.

"Same week," I said. "Same night. Same clinic, if you can believe it."

He put one hand on the back of the chair.

"Can I sit down?"

"It's the only chair."

"I know. Can I sit down?"

I stood up and let him have it.

He sat like a man who'd been shot somewhere it didn't hurt yet.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Downstairs the bakery ovens ticked as they cooled.

"Mine," Cillian said from the floor.

"Yes, genius," Lexie said. "Yours. That's how it works."

"I'm not arguing."

"You sounded like you were arguing."

"I was counting."

Ciro rubbed his face with both hands.

When he looked up, his eyes were wet, and he was annoyed about it.

"You were going to tell me when?" he said.

"Never was on the list," I said. "So was a Christmas card."

"You can't stay here," he said. "Not over a bakery with a window on the street. You're coming home with me."

"She's not going anywhere with you," Cillian said. "Lexie's coming with me."

"Lexie is standing right here," Lexie said.

"Nobody's coming with anybody," I said.

Both men started talking at once.

Ciro said villa and doctor and guards.

Cillian said Ventnor and safe and mine again.

Lexie opened the drawer under the bread box and pulled out a white bakery napkin.

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