Page 75 of Wells

"More."

"That's vague. You're going to have to be more specific."

"I know." I exhale, and the next part costs me everything. "I keep people at a distance. It's the only thing I'm good at. I don't want to do it with you. That's as clear as I can make it."

Her face changes, not much, but enough that I track it. There's a small give around her eyes, and her shoulders drop a fraction.

"I'm trying to read between your lines here. You're warm one minute, and the next you're so cold I forget you're the same person."

There are two of me, and she has met both. I know that's not what she's referring to, but the irony sucker punches me.

"I know. Our working situation makes it complicated, and all this other shit I've been dealing with hasn't helped."

She almost laughs. "You are not selling this very well."

"I know."

"So why should I say yes?"

I look at her. The sharp eyes, the set of her mouth, the walls she keeps up that I want behind more than I've wanted anything in years. Under the table my knee sits an inch from hers.

"Because you want to."

She doesn't answer. She picks up the wine and drains half of it, and when she sets the glass down she holds my eyes and doesn't look away, and the quiet between us goes taut, the kind that has nothing to do with talking.

"Mighty confident of you to say that," she says.

"What can I say? I'm good at uncovering things most can't."

"Hmm," she hums, as if she'd never considered that. "Okay, if you say so."

"Okay?"

"Okay. I want to see where this goes." She leans in, and the wit drops out of her voice. "But I like my job. If this falls apart, I'm not the one who loses it. And quit with the eggshells."

"Fair."

The server comes back with menus, and she takes hers and starts to read, cool again, like she didn't just hand me the thing I've never had to ask for. I watch her over the top of mine.

After dinner, I walk Cera out of the restaurant with my hand resting against her lower back. The contact is deliberate. I'm allowed to touch her now, and it doesn't have to be only after the pressure valve blew and we resorted to sex.

The guilt still sits underneath it, though.

Midnight is already dead. I won't log in again. I won't send her money after this month. I'll let the arrangement die in silence, and she will never know the two men were one.

It is the only way this works.

NINETEEN

Cera

The Morning After: When midnight passes, the floats are gone, the streets are swept, and what felt endless is simply over, nothing left but litter and a strange quiet. She woke to a swept street where a whole world had stood, with no proof it ever happened but the ache.

I wake first on my right side.

My sheets lie tangled at the foot of the bed, one pillow on the floor, the faint scent of Wells's cologne mixed with cigarettes clinging to everything. The air is warm, still. Last night, we were in too much of a hurry to bother with the ceiling fan.

His arm rests under my neck, and his chest presses against my back, rising and falling in a rhythm so slow I can count each breath. The heat of him seeps into me.