My Sister's Tears Stole My First Life, Not My Second novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Snow

"Since ten o'clock," I said.

"Since two minutes ago." He checked his watch. "Ten-oh-two."

Snow landed on my eyelashes. I blinked it off.

"So you're just a man now."

"I'm just a man who wired this building," he said. "I can still turn the lobby lights off if you need a dramatic exit."

"I've had enough dramatic exits for one night."

"Then what do you want?"

He said it plainly, standing in the snow with his hands in his coat pockets.

He'd have said it again as many times as I needed.

Behind us the doors opened.

Gage came out with the pastor on his arm, the pastor's bow tie in his own pocket now.

"Your brother put us on the twentieth floor," Gage said. "Room service. He says we can order anything."

"Anything," the pastor said, with some wonder.

Gage looked at me. Then at Simon. Then back at me.

He's never been subtle, but he's never been stupid either.

"I'm gonna get this man a cheeseburger," he said. "Text me. Not in the morning. Tonight. Even just a word."

"What word?"

"Any word, Win. Just so I know you're alive."

He kissed the top of my head and took the pastor back inside.

The pastor waved at Simon over his shoulder.

"Good night, young man. Mind the ice."

Then it was just the two of us and the doorman, who'd found something deeply interesting in the harbor.

"I want to go to your place," I said.

Simon didn't move.

"Are you sure?"

"Ask me again in the car."

He did.

He lived in Dorchester, over the garage where he'd started his company, in a brick building that used to be a bakery.

The car let us out at the curb, and the snow was coming down so thick I couldn't see the end of the street.

He unlocked a side door and we went up a narrow flight of stairs, and I could smell bread in the walls, old and faint.

"It never goes away," he said. "I've tried."

His apartment was one big room with a kitchen at one end and tall windows at the other.

A couch. Too many books. A hockey stick on hooks over the door, with a dent in the blade.

"The one from the scar?"

"The one from the goal," he said.

He took my coat.

He hung it on the hook by the door, very carefully.

Then he stood there with his hands empty.

The radiator knocked. Snow ticked on the windows.

"You asked me in the car," I said.

"You said yes in the car."

"Ask me again."

He came across the room until he was standing right in front of me.

He didn't touch me.

"Winnie," he said. "Do you want to stay tonight?"

"Yes."

"With me."

"Yes."

"If you change your mind, at any point, you say so, and I'll drive you back to that hotel myself and never say a word about it."

"I know you will," I said. "That's why I'm here."

Then I reached up and pulled him down by his tie.

This kiss wasn't like the one in the rain.

There was no umbrella and no brother kicking tires down the hill, and nobody's name on any will.

He kissed me slowly, with both hands in my hair.

I got his jacket off his shoulders. It hit the floor.

He laughed against my mouth.

"That's a good suit."

"It's a very good suit," I said, and started on his shirt buttons.

My fingers were clumsy. He let me take my time.

When I got the shirt open, I put my hands flat on his chest, and his heart was going as hard as mine.

"You're shaking," he said.

"So are you."

"I've been thinking about this since the Waffle House."

"We never went to a Waffle House."

"I went alone," he said. "Every morning. And thought about it."

I laughed so hard I had to hold onto him.

He found the zipper at the back of my black dress, and stopped there with his fingers on it.

He looked at me.

"Yes," I said, before he could ask.

He drew it down, all the way, slowly.

The dress slid off my shoulders and pooled at my feet.

He looked at me in the light from the snow.

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