Chapter 24: The Key

"The key," Ray said.

He sat up against the headboard, bare to the waist, his head still heavy with sleep.

"What about it?"

"It's been on a bootlace for three months," Nico said.

"It's been in a duffel, on my neck, on yours."

"Vera's man pulled it over my head in a cabin, and it could have been lost in the snow."

"It's a very small key."

"It's the most important object I own."

He held up the thin silver chain.

At the end of it hung the key, new and bright, polished until it shone, the flat tooth of it clean as a coin.

"I bought a chain for it," Nico said.

"A real one."

"I went out this morning while you were asleep."

"A man on Clark Street said it was the strangest thing anyone had asked him to make."

"You left me alone in the apartment."

"I locked it twice. And I left the door open to the hall so you'd hear me come back."

Ray looked at him.

There was a flush on Nico's face, and his hands were not entirely steady, and he did not look away.

"I've been the one who holds it," Nico said.

"Since the hotel."

"Because I was the one afraid."

"And you let me, every night."

"You asked, where's the key, and I said on me, and that was the whole of what we had."

"It was a lot."

"It was everything. But I don't need to hold it anymore."

"Nico."

"I'm not afraid of rooms. I slept in my own bed last night, and I slept all the way through. I'm giving it to you."

He leaned forward and slipped the chain over Ray's head.

The key settled against his sternum, a small cold weight that warmed at once from his skin.

"I want to be the one who's held," Nico said softly. "And I want you to be the one who decides when it ends."

Ray's throat closed.

"You mean it."

"Where's the key?"

Ray put his hand on it.

"On me," he said.

The words came out cracked.

Nico smiled, a brilliant crooked smile with tears standing in his eyes.

He picked up the cuffs from his lap, and held out his own wrists, side by side.

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