Page 60 of Lady and the Butcher

The bell went quiet. The floor cleared. I turned the sign to CLOSED for a half hour so we could eat something. My thumb hovered over Mom’s name. Then I called.

“Simone,” she answered, like she had been holding the phone in her hand. Relief first, then the soft kind of scold only mothers have the right to use. “Your brother stopped by this morning. He thinks something is up.”

“How so?” I asked, playing dumb and failing at it.

“He said you were with someone. That he didn’t recognize you. He didn’t say ‘bad.’ He said ‘different.’ Should I be worried?”

I stared at the milk fridge I hadn’t asked for and felt the sharp dart of love and annoyance. “I’m okay,” I said. “More than okay.”

“You sound tired,” she said. Mother code forI do not buy thisand alsoI will not press yet.

“I was at a birth last night.”

“I know that sound, too,” she said. “This isn’t it. This is … something else. You sound like a storm front. That can water a garden. It can also break a fence.”

I let out a breath. “I’m not a fence.”

“No,” she said, and I could hear the smile. “You’re a woman who built a fence with a gate that swings for people who need rest. I only want to know you close the gate behind yourself.”

Um, that was a lot to unpack.

“I will.”

“Good. I love you. Call me tomorrow.”

I promised. We hung up. The promise sat heavy.

The bell rang again before I could put the phone down. Stephen. He didn’t knock. He used his key like the shop was his garage and I was a bike he planned to fix.

“Sim.” Not a greeting. A summons.

“Hi,” I said, and braced without changing my face.

He took me in. “Mom is worried.”

“She called. I’m fine.”

“You didn’t look fine last night.”

I felt my cheeks heat. “Define ‘fine.’”

He opened his hands. “Not that.”

There it was. The carriage. The sea wall. Alicia’s eyes going wide. The set of his mouth when Atticus wiped his lips with the back of his hand and refused to look sorry.

“You said this Alpha Mail thing was one night.” He kept his voice low. “Anonymous. Clean. You swore you understood the risk and mitigated it.”

“I did understand it,” I said. “I mitigated it. Then life did what it does.”

“Which is what? Throw you into the arms of a man who empties rooms for sport?”

“He doesn’t empty rooms for sport.”

“So, for what,” Stephen asked, flat. “Fun? Power? Habit? You forget I know the guy.”

“For quiet,” I said, before I could spin a better answer. “He likes quiet when he needs it.”

Stephen made an exasperated sound. “This isn’t funny, Sim.”