Chapter 18: The Back Stairs

We got home at eleven.

Ewan took my couch without being told, and was asleep in his shoes in four minutes.

I couldn't stay in the flat.

The walls felt close, and every light was too bright.

I took the gray blanket off the chair and went out to the back stairs.

Quinn had rebuilt them last spring.

The oak treads were wide and smooth, and the landing at the top had a little roof over it.

The night smelled of cold leaves and the lake.

I sat on the top step and pulled the blanket around my shoulders.

I heard him come out behind me.

He didn't say anything.

He lowered himself onto the step with a small grunt for the knee, and I leaned back against his chest.

"You were good tonight," he said.

"I was shaking the whole time."

"I know. I could feel it through the chair."

"Did I look like I was shaking?"

"You looked like somebody who was done."

I laughed, once, softly.

His arms came around me under the blanket.

"Tomorrow I stand next to her with a bouquet," I said. "And I do what, Quinn? I don't know yet."

"You'll know when you're up there."

"That's not a plan."

"It's what you do. You walk into a room, you look at the people, and you know."

"That's what you did the first day I saw you."

"You never saw me. I was carrying a laundry basket."

"You were carrying a laundry basket and you told the landlord his stairs were going to kill somebody."

"They almost did."

"So I rebuilt them."