Page 85 of The Clinch
I loosen my grip. The rhythm smooths back out.
Matthias watches another turn of the rope in silence. Then, “You do this when your head gets loud?”
I don’t answer.
Because if I stop, I think. And if I think, I’m right back in that bed with her on top of me, my hands on her hips, one sentence turning the whole thing inside out.
He accepts that anyway. “Be careful. Routine helps until you start using it as punishment.”
Adam glances over at that.
I keep the rope moving.
Eventually I slow the rope,let it coast once around my wrists, then stop. The exertion is hammering through me.
Adam is into his third set of bench presses. Matthias is spotting him. I grab my towel and get out before my body decides to keep going just because it can.
The outdoor shower knocks the sweat off.
Nothing else.
Inside, the house is finding its shape—floorboards, a door, someone laughing down the hall. The kitchen is cool, bright, smelling of coffee.
I know before I taste it that it’s the wrong beans.
I pour a mug anyway.
It isn’t hers.
Nothing about this morning is.
Nate is at the counter, barefoot, hair a mess. “You sleep?”
“Some.”
He looks past me, up the hall, toward the stairs, searching for who didn’t walk in behind me. Eden comes in a second later, hoodie over sleep-soft hair, and does the same sweep in half the time.
Me.
Coffee.
No Liz.
She doesn’t say a word. That’s how I know she sees all of it.
I drink the brew anyway and let it burn going down.
Nate starts pulling out pans and a cutting board, moving with that calm, practiced competence of his. Eden leans against the counter with her mug and keeps not asking questions.
The house continues moving.
She’s somewhere in it. Awake, probably. Thinking. Pulling the walls back up.
I could go find her.
I don’t.
Eden takes a sip of coffee, watching Nate crack eggs one-handed into a bowl, then says, almost absentmindedly, “Nice of Liz to cover a shift on a holiday weekend.”
