Page 81 of Bitter’s Sweet

“I think he should’ve been better.”

Her expression cracks just a little.

Then she looks down at the plate. “He started calling me Doll because he said I was pretty and breakable. I thought he meant precious.”

I push back from the table before I break it.

Sweet’s gaze lifts. “Bitter.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re standing up like the chair insulted your mama.”

I pace to the sink, grip the edge, and stare out the window at the cemetery road. “Keep talking.”

“You look like you can’t handle it.”

“I can handle anything you hand me.”

That comes out rougher than I mean.

Behind me, her chair scrapes softly.

“I left when I realized love wasn’t supposed to feel like being managed,” she says. “That’s all I’m giving tonight.”

Managed.

Hell of a word for half the things I’ve done since meeting her.

The difference I keep telling myself exists between me and Razor gets real damn thin if I decide my reasons matter more than her answer.

I nod once. “That’s enough.”

“It has to be.”

“It is.”

Silence settles, but it ain’t empty. It is full of everything I want to ask and everything she ain’t ready to answer.

Then she says, “Who was Lena?”

My spine locks. “Not tonight.”

“Okay.”

Just that. Okay.

No pushing. No bargain. No smile wrapped around curiosity. She gives my wall the same respect she demanded for hers, and that does something dangerous to me.

I turn around.

She is standing near the table, arms wrapped around herself, hair coming loose from its pins, face tired now that she has stopped performing sunshine for everybody else. Her mouth is soft. Her eyes are too big.

My apartment looks wrong with her in it, like somebody put a church candle in a gun safe.

“I’m gonna shower,” she says. “If that’s okay.”

“Bathroom’s there. Towels under the sink. Lock works.”