Page 89 of Final Drive

“You’re not the folder.”

“I’m the folder tonight.”

“Tyler.” She leans forward on the back of the chair. “You know what I thought about in that stairwell? Not the file. Not the accounts. You at the country club, telling my mother she had five seconds.”

“That wasn’t research.”

“That’s my point.”

I take my glasses off again, and this time I set them on the desk instead of cleaning them.

“There’s a thing I need to say before you say anything else, and I need to say it in order or I’ll get it wrong.”

“Okay.”

“Three bonded pairs qualifies us as a recognized unit. Four is better. Five makes a discrimination claim nearly impossible to win against us.” I keep my eyes on her. “You had four this morning. Bo made five this afternoon. That’s where the curve flattens. I put it in the memo in March and nothing has changed since.”

Reese has gone very still.

“So if you came up here because there’s a box left to check, it closed downstairs before I ever opened my mouth about Quinton. I need you to know that I know it, before you say whatever you came here to say. Otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life running the math on it.”

Downstairs a pan hits the kitchen floor and Zane swears.

“That’s the most words you’ve ever said to me at once,” Reese says.

“I had it written down.”

She stands, crosses the two feet between us, and stops in front of the chair. I have to tip my head back to keep her face in view. I’ve never been in that position with her before.

“I didn’t come up here to check a box. I came up here because I’ve been thinking about your car since the night you kissed me in it, and since then I’ve been interrupted by a stalking campaign, a Title IX hearing, and everybody else’s timing.”

“That’s a fairly complete list.”

“It’s an accurate list.” Her mouth tips. “You want it cleaner?”

“Yes. I’d prefer clean.”

“I want you.” She says it flat, with no decoration on it. She uses that register with me and with nobody else. I’ve privately catalogued it as the best single thing about knowing her. “Not the folder. Not the memo. You. And I’ll keep wanting you if you never find another thing on Quinton Whitmore as long as you live.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“I’m processing. Give me a second.”

She laughs, and it breaks in the middle. Then her hands are on either side of my face and she kisses me.

I have thought about this more than I’ve admitted to anyone, repetitively, at three in the morning. None of it helps now. Her thumb sits at the corner of my jaw. Her weight comes forward and the chair takes it. I get one hand into her hair, the other flat against her back, and I stop running anything at all.

She pulls back first.

“Tell me what you want. Out loud. I’m not guessing with you.”

“I want to take my time.”

“How much time?”

“All of it.”