Chapter 13: Say It Awake

On Saturday at half past six Florian zipped me into the green dress.

It was the one dress in my suitcase I had bought for myself.

His knuckles went up my spine slowly, and he stopped at the top and left his hand flat between my shoulder blades.

"Too tight?" he asked.

"No."

"Then why are you shaking?"

"Because I'm going to walk into that room and everyone will look."

"They'll look," Nils said from the doorway. "Good. Let them see what they lost."

He had shaved around his beard and his cheek had faded to yellow.

He came across the room and fastened the thin gold chain at my neck, and his thumbs stayed on my nape.

We went down the stairs together, and the stairwell light clicked off between the second floor and the first.

In the dark Nils caught my wrist and turned me against the wall.

I could feel the whole length of him, and Florian one step above us, not moving.

"I'm going to tell you something," Nils said against my ear. "Because you said everything out loud now."

"Tell me."

"Tonight I'm going to watch you in that dress across sixty people. I'm going to think about pushing it up around your waist."

My breath caught.

"I'll think about turning you over a table in the pavilion kitchen and putting my mouth on you until you can't stand.

"And you'll have to smile at his mother."

"Nils," Florian said, low.

"Say you don't want me to, and I'll stop."

"I don't want you to stop," I said.

The light clicked on.

Nils stepped back with a grin that did not hide anything, and I walked out into the street with my knees weak.

The taxi was already waiting.

I got in the middle, between them, and the driver, a heavy man with a grey ponytail, asked where to.

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