Page 51 of Lady and the Butcher

“Love you, too,” he muttered, and let Alicia pull him toward the walkway, his protective field trailing after them like a cape.

We sat for a second, the bench reclaiming our weight, the fountain shushing like a grandmother telling the evening to behave. The violinist drifted into something melancholy and rich. Children squealed, tourists posed, the city pretended this was another random day.

Atticus watched Stephen and Alicia until they disappeared behind a group of laughing bridesmaids. Only then did he turn back to me, the line of his mouth easing a degree.

“You held your line,” he said.

“So did you,” I said, and meant it. “Thank you for not … performing.”

“I don’t audition,” he said. “And I don’t argue with brothers in public.”

“Wise,” I said, breathier than the joke deserved.

He let his hand fall to my knee again, the same quiet weight as before, the same not-for-show claim. My body answered with humiliating gratitude.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For what?”

“For the part you wrote,” he said, standing, offering his hand like a formality that also meant surrender.

I took it. The city breathed. The pineapple threw diamonds. The night gathered its hem and stepped out of our way.

We walked back toward the carriage, the driver still practicing advanced blindness, the horse patient as a saint. Atticus handed the man another folded bill, low and discreet. “Private route back,” he said again, and the words slid over me like a hand down my spine.

I climbed in. He followed. The wheels grumbled, then smoothed. Charleston unspooled—ironwork and shadow, magnolia and hush.

Behind us, somewhere beyond the circle of our making, I knew Stephen was replaying that minute until it lost all oxygen. I knew Alicia was rubbing his shoulder, telling him what I would have told him, if my hands weren’t busy holding on to the edge of the night.

Ahead of us, the route bent darker and quieter, like the city had reserved a corner for what came next.

I set my palms on the bench and straightened.

“Text your brother,” Atticus said, not looking away from the water beyond the street, as the horse found its rhythm.

I thumbed two words into my phone:I’m safe.

The dots appeared. Disappeared. Then:I know.

I put the phone away.

“Good,” Atticus murmured, and the word wrapped around my ribs like a band that held and did not constrict.

The carriage turned, the hooves’ cadence slowing as we slipped into a lane draped with live oaks. The lamps were sparser here; the night pressed close, thick and fragrant. The rest of the city fell away.

“Now,” he said, voice low enough that only the dark heard it. “Where were we?”

The horse snorted. The leather settled. The bench creaked under the weight of what I’d asked for.

I swallowed, felt my pulse stutter, and met the night head-on. “Exactly where you left me,” I said. “Wanting more.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, a promise sharpened to a point. “Then let’s finish building.”

17

The carriage let us off like it knew when to bow out. The lobby of the hotel swallowed us in gold and hush. Atticus’s palm touched the small of my back for one beat. Not a guide. A brand.

Upstairs, the suite looked the same and not at all. The city had slipped its bright dress off and put on ink. The bridge traced a necklace across the black. The windows waited like a dare we both remembered too well.