Page 88 of Bitter’s Sweet

“No.” A tiny smile touches her mouth, sad and brave. “I think that’s why you’re mad.”

Goddamn her.

She is right.

I’m furious because I want her. More furious because she stopped. Most furious because some part of me is proud of her for doing it.

I turn away before she sees too much.

The room feels too small. The locks feel too loud. The bed sits behind us like a dare. Outside, carnival music carries faint through the window, happy as sin, while I stand in my own kitchen with a woman I want under my hands and a boundary I have no right to cross.

“You get the bed.”

“That’s it?”

I look back.

She stands near the counter with her arms wrapped around herself, damp hair over one shoulder, mouth kissed red by me.

My voice comes out rough. “That’s all I got clean enough to offer.”

Her expression softens in a way I do not deserve. “Okay.”

Again with that damn respect.

She goes to the bed, pulls back the blanket, and climbs in wearing sunflowers and caution. I grab a spare blanket from the closet and throw it on the couch. My body is still hard, my temper still hot, and my chest still too tight around things I refuse to name.

I kill the lamp by the couch, and dark settles over the apartment.

For a long while, neither of us speaks.

Then Sweet’s voice comes from the bed, small in the shadows.

“Bitter?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for stopping.”

My jaw clenches.

The words should make me feel decent. Instead, they make me want to murder every man who ever taught her to thank somebody for basic respect.

“You don’t thank men for that.”

She is quiet for a second.

Then, softly, “I do when I need to remember some will.”

I close my eyes.

Lena used to say my name like a prayer when she wanted something gentle from me.

Sweet says it like a question she doesn’t trust herself to ask.

Two ghosts in one room, and one of them ain’t even dead.

“Sleep.”