Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
He stretches out on top of the covers beside me. His body takes up most of the bed and all of my awareness. Heat comes off him in waves.
We lie there. The compound settles around us. Distant voices. An engine somewhere. The creak of the building doing what old buildings do at night.
I stare at the ceiling and try to make my brain slow down and fail completely.
"Hey," I say quietly.
"Yeah."
"I'm not going to be able to sleep."
"You will."
"You don't know that."
"You've been running on adrenaline. Your body knows what it needs."
I consider that. He's probably right, which is annoying. "Can I ask you something?"
A pause. "Depends."
"The prospect who signed the maintenance log. Finn." I keep my voice careful. "You texted Ghost and he left. What does that mean? What happens to him?”
The silence that follows is a different kind than the ones before it. He's not deciding whether to answer. He's deciding how much of the answer is mine to have.
"It means we find him," Kraken says finally. "And we get what he knows."
"And then?”
"And then it's handled."
I absorb that. The ceiling has a crack running from the light fixture toward the window, branching twice before it reaches the wall. I trace it with my eyes. "Okay," I say. Same word I used when he said Finn wasn't going to be okay. Meaning: I understand, and I'm not going to pretend I don't, and I'm also not going to make you explain what you are to me.
He shifts beside me. Not closer, just shifting, and then his hand finds my hip through the covers. Not gripping. Just resting there. The weight of it is steady and deliberate and I feel it everywhere.
"The data work tonight," he says. "The maintenance logs. That was good thinking."
"You already said that."
"I'm saying it again."
I turn my head to look at him. He's looking at the ceiling too, jaw set, the lamp catching the edge of his profile. The kraken tattoo peeks out of the collar of his shirt and I think about how the whole thing wraps around his ribs and what it would be like to trace it with one finger and then I think about something else aggressively.
"You dismissed me twice before you listened," I say. "I just want that on the record."
"It's on the record."
"And the coffee. That was a very indirect apology."
"It was coffee."
"It was an apology in coffee form and we both know it."
Something happens at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. The ghost of the idea of one. "Go to sleep, Tia."
I look back at the ceiling. His hand is still on my hip. The warmth of it has spread up through my whole side. My brain is finally starting to blur at the edges the way it does when sleep is actually coming.
"I know you want to," I say quietly. Not a come-on. Just honest. The dark makes it easier. "I'm not trying to make it weird. I just. I know. And you know I know. And I think we're both pretending very hard and I don't totally understand why."
The room goes still.
He doesn't move his hand.
"Because you're here for protection," he says. His voice is level. Controlled. "Because the situation is dangerous and your judgment and mine can't afford to be compromised right now."
"Those are real reasons."
"Yeah.”
"Okay." I close my eyes. "I just didn't want to keep pretending I don't notice."
Another silence. Long enough that I think he's not going to answer, that I've pushed past the edge of what he's willing to do.
Then his hand moves. Just slightly. His thumb traces one slow circle on my hip, once, through the fabric. Like he's answering a question he doesn't have words for.
I don't say anything. I don't push it. I let it be what it is, which is the closest thing to an admission either of us has made out loud.
“I should have grabbed Kevin," I say finally, because I need to say something lighter or I'm not going to be able to breathe.
I hear the exhale from his side of the bed. Not quite a laugh. But something that would be, from a different man in a different life. “Who the fuck is Kevin?”
“The spider plant. He’s my friend.”
"Go to sleep," he says.
"Okay." I pull the covers a little higher. His hand stays where it is, steady and warm. "Kraken?"
"What?”
"Thank you. For listening tonight. Eventually."
He doesn't answer with words. His hand shifts up slightly, settles at my waist, and holds there. Solid and deliberate.
I close my eyes and focus on that weight and let it push everything else back. The fear. The noise. The images from the fence line. The question of what happens to Finn. All of it goes quiet under the pressure of one steady hand.
I fall asleep faster than I expect to.