Chapter 24: Next Month Is Now

I took the key.

It was heavy, and warm from her hand, and I closed my fingers on it.

I did not ask her in.

"Veda wrote you forty-one letters," I said. "Write her one back."

Margaret's chin lifted.

"She'll open it," I said. "That's more than you gave her."

"I will write it," Margaret said.

"Mail it from your own hand. Not from the foundation office."

She nodded once.

Then she turned and went down the stairs alone, one hand on the rail, and I listened to her step until the street door shut.

The old man downstairs called up that someone had better bring her an umbrella.

Veda did, and ran it out to the curb herself, and came back soaked and glaring at nobody.

At midnight the last guest left with a cookie in each pocket.

I woke at dawn with a ring on my hand and a man's arm across my waist.

The east window had gone white.

Light lay over the drafting table, and I lay still in the bed and watched it climb.

Colin was awake.

I knew it from his breathing, which had stopped pretending.

"You're still here," he said into my shoulder.

"You asked me that at the cabin."

"I asked you in the morning. This is the morning."

"Ask again."

He propped himself on one elbow and looked at me, rumpled and unguarded.

"Are you staying?"

"Yes," I said, and pulled him down.

He kissed me slow, with his hand spread over my ribs where the crack had finally healed.

His mouth went down my throat to my breasts, and he took one nipple between his teeth until I arched.

He kept going, down my stomach and my hips, and he pushed my thighs apart and lowered his head.

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