Page 66 of Lady and the Butcher

I made a noise that meant I didn’t want to move ever again.

I didn’t.

“It’s not a request.”

He eased me up and went to the bathroom and came back with a glass. He kept one hand on me while I drank like he was keeping me from falling off the Earth. He set the glass down and came back with a warm cloth. He didn’t make a performance of it. He cleaned me with a care that had nothing to prove. It stole my breath more than anything else.

“Thank you,” I said, small and raw.

“You’re welcome,” he said in the tone of a man who prefers actions to speeches. He folded the cloth and set it aside. He rested his chin on the top of my head.

We watched the city darken from the horizontal. There’s a particular color water takes when the last of day lets go. He let me see it. He didn’t make me move until I wanted to again.

“Say something true,” he said finally, voice quiet.

“I didn’t know my body could feel like this,” I said. “Not just the heat. The quiet after. The part where I don’t come back smaller.”

He exhaled in a way that told me my words had landed. “Good.”

“Your turn,” I said.

He was silent long enough I thought he might dodge. He didn’t. “I don’t sleep much,” he said. “Not really. Not full. The last time I did, it was on a boat that shouldn’t have been where it was. I was a kid. That ended the day the water took something I couldn’t get back.”

I lifted my head. I looked at his face. The scar near his mouth changed shape when he said certain words. I touched the edge of it, gentle.

“You slept last night,” I said. “Some.”

“With you on my chest,” he said. “My mind shut up. I didn’t know it could.”

The words slid into me and found a spot that had been waiting. I knew what it meant to have a mind that wouldn’t stop talking. I knew the sacredness of quiet.

“Where do you live?” I asked, because the question had been circling.

He looked at the ceiling like there was an answer written there in tiny script. “I have a few places. One downtown, with a view I almost ignore. One by the river, above a warehouse, whereno one looks up if I come in late. A little place on James Island that smells like pluff mud and old wood.”

“Which one is home?”

He turned his head, thinking. He didn’t answer fast. “The one where I leave my watch on the counter and forget it,” he said finally. “That changes.”

“Who are you?” I asked, softer. “Really?”

He propped himself on an elbow. He used the other hand to keep me close. He took his time again, and I felt the shape of the words before he gave them to me.

“I move things that need moving,” he said. “Sometimes it’s paper. Sometimes it’s steel. Sometimes it’s people who don’t fit in anyone else’s plan. I keep routes clean. I close doors that shouldn’t be open. I open doors that should never have been closed.”

“And if someone tries to keep a door open that you want shut?”

“Then I show up,” he said. He didn’t change tone. That was the part that made the truth dark. “I remind them why the door closes.”

That was all vague as hell. Same as the last time we’d talked about it.

“Does this make you dangerous?” The question came out like a breath I had been holding.

“Only to people who forget the rules they agreed to,” he said.

“And what are your rules?” I asked. “For me.”

“Tell me the truth,” he said. “Eat. Sleep. Keep saying yes on purpose. Don’t run when you want to hide. Don’t hide when you want to be seen. If you need a leash, you ask for it, and you tell me when to take it off.”