Page 235 of Across His Line

I watch the porch door at the top of the hill open. Two shapes come out into the light. One of them’s small and loud and talking, and one of them has her hand up over her eyes against the porch light, looking down the hill at the car, looking for me.

She finds me and waves with my glove still on her hand, four sizes too big, flapping.

I lift my bare hand.

Barnes sees me do it. He opens his mouth. Kennebeck looks up and sees Kylie. He nods his head toward the car and the girls walk down. We leave.

At home, Tess doesn’t stop at the guest room.

Kylie and Kennebeck go down the hall to the far side of the house. Barnes goes to his, still talking about the scout. My parents are in the front room with the fire going and the TV low.

And Tessa goes up the stairs and walks straight past the guest room door without even looking at it, into mine.

I take a shower. When I come out in my sweats, she’s on my side of the bed with my pillow under her head, her phone on my nightstand, and her book open on her chest.

“Move over,” I say in the politest way I can. I hear it, and it doesn’t sound polite.

“No.”

I stand there at the edge of the bed and look at her.

She turns a page in her book.

I throw the towel at the chair. I get in on the other side. And I don’t move her. I just get in around her, my arm over her, my chest against her back, my face in her braided hair, and she keeps reading for about six seconds before she puts the book down on the nightstand.

“Kylie says you suck,” she says.

“I know.”

“She said she’ll go to prison for murder if you hurt me.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

She turns over in my arms to face me, and she puts her hand on my jaw. She looks at me for a while in the light from the lamp with her thumb moving on my cheekbone, the way she does.

Then she whispers, “Which part? The murder or the––”

I kiss her. Hard.

She kisses me back, then pulls away.

“Rafe.”

I keep my forehead against hers. “Kylie’s worried about the wrong fucking person, Tess.”

Her thumb stops on my cheek. “What does that mean?”

I look at her. “You know what that means.”

Then she kisses me.

And for a minute, it gets away from both of us. Her hand slides around to the back of my neck. Mine finds the small of her back under the T-shirt, her warm skin there, and she makes a sound against my mouth and pulls herself closer. I roll her under me, and she laughs because my wet hair drips on her face.

I stop because I want to look at her. She’s squinting, afraid the water from my hair will drip into her eyes. Her braid is coming loose on my pillow. Her face is pink. The watch on her wrist is ticking next to my ear.

Time.

We have time.