Chapter 8: Breakfast

He waited until we were in the truck with the doors shut.

I'd watched him all the way across the parking lot, and he had not once asked me what Faye said.

That was how I knew she was right about something.

"Ask me," I said.

Bram kept both hands on the wheel.

"She told you to ask why I came to the church."

"So I'm asking."

"I came to tell you something," he said.

"I should have said it seven years ago. It's not small, and it isn't a thing you tell a woman in a parking lot."

"You're going to make me wait."

"I'm going to make you hear it in a house with a locked door, after you've slept, with nobody's phone in your hand."

I stared at him.

He looked back, steady, and I saw how tired he was under the beard.

"Is it that you're sick?"

"No."

"Is it that you've got a kid in Norway?"

His mouth twitched, in spite of everything.

"No kids in Norway."

"Then there's only one thing left it can be," I said.

I put my hand over his on the wheel.

"Is it that you still want me?"

The engine ticked.

He closed his eyes.

"Yes," he said. "God. Yes."

"Then it can wait until I've slept."

I should have pushed.

I know that now.

I was past exhausted.

A hundred and forty thousand strangers were calling me a name.

A man who wanted me had just said so in a voice.

I wanted one night without a fight in it.

I took it.

He drove us to the boathouse, and I noticed that his knuckles were white the whole way.

In the bathroom upstairs, a rain shower hung from the beam.

He turned it on, hot, and the glass fogged.

"I want to wash your hair," Bram said.

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