Page 248 of What We Bury

I look up and Knox fills the doorway, because Knox always fills whatever doorway he’s in, and Jamie goes still the way people do when they register that the person they’re looking at requires recalibrating their entire sense of scale.

Knox’s eyes find mine and he raises his chin in acknowledgment. Then he looks at Jamie, who is making absolutely no effort to look anywhere else.

Jamie turns to me very slowly and whispers, “You can takethat?”

I press my lips together.

He waggles his eyebrows so hard I think he might injure something. Then he drains his coffee, pulls on his jacket, and stands. “Right. I’ve got errands.” He points at me. “Tomorrow. Details. Don’t make me beg.”

“No promises!”

“We’ll negotiate.” He slings his bag over his shoulder and pauses on his way past Knox, looking up—and up—with the expression of a man who is filing something away for future appreciation. “Lovely to see you.”

“You too,” Knox says, in the voice that contains entire landscapes.

Jamie looks back at me one more time, mouths something I’m choosing to interpret asincredible,and walks out into the sunshine.

Knox eats the pie Jamie forgot and waits until I finish my shift.

It’s warm outside, the kind of afternoon that smells like the ocean and cut grass, and I fall into step beside him naturally, our bodies close.

Half a block down, he steers me into the ice cream place on the corner without a word and comes out two minutes later with a cone for me—one scoop, chocolate, which I did not tell himwas my favorite but apparently he knew anyway—and nothing for himself.

“You’re not getting one?”

“No.”

“That’s sad.”

“I don’t like ice cream.”

I stop walking. “I’m sorry. You don’t—how?”

He looks at me. “It’s cold.”

“It’s supposed to be cold. That’s the point.”

“I don’t like cold food.”

I stare at him for a moment, recalibrating. “Knox. I feel like I’m learning something important about you.”

“You’re also dripping.”

I catch the cone before disaster and we keep walking. The afternoon is easy, the kind of day that makes this town look like a postcard, and I’m halfway through the ice cream and telling Knox about an art school anecdote Jamie told me—a disaster involving a kiln and an ill-advised performance piece—when I notice Knox watching me with concern.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, licking my ice cream and peering up at him.

“You’re limping.”

“I’m okay. Just a little tender.”

He doesn’t say anything more. Just stops on the sidewalk and hooks his arm behind my knees and I’m up before I’ve finished the protest.

“Knox—”

“I should have double-parked. There were no spots. But I should have double-parked.” He says it like it’s simply a fact he got wrong, an oversight he’s correcting now. He settles me against his chest and keeps walking at exactly the same pace, not breaking stride.

“I can walk. It’s good for me to move around.”