Page 161 of What We Bury

He laughs. It’s not the smooth, practiced laugh he uses in public. It’s rough and startled and real. “I’m supposed to ask you that.”

“I asked first.”

He studies my face for a long moment. Then he presses his lips to my forehead. Soft, careful, the most gentle thing he’s done since he walked through my door.

“Yeah, wildcat,” he says quietly. “I’m okay.”

“I’m okay too. Great, actually.”

He grins and helps me down. My legs are shaky enough that he keeps his hands on my waist until I’m steady. We clean up in companionable silence, him pulling his shirt back on, me finding my leggings, both of us moving around the kitchen like neither of us is interested in pretending the kiss from two days ago didn’t just finish detonating.

He rinses the blood out of the sink. Finds a Band-Aid in the bathroom and puts it on my finger himself, pressing the adhesive down with a care that makes my chest tight.

“For the record,” he says, smoothing the Band-Aid flat, “I came here to remove cameras and be honest with you. This was not the plan.”

“Well, if this was unplanned, I can’t wait to see what happens when you’ve had time to prepare.”

His grin flashes, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’ll make you a calendar invite. Subject:Extremely Hot Kitchen Sex. Please RSVP by end of business today.”

I roll my eyes, but it’s impossible not to smile. “You are absurd.”

“And you’re dangerous,” he shoots back, gaze dropping pointedly to my mouth, then lower. “If you keep looking at me like that, we’re both going to be late for our next appointments.”

“I don’t have any appointments.” I lick my lips, because I can, and catch the way his eyes darken all over again.

“Neither do I, wildcat,” he says, crowding me against the counter again. “Neither do I.”

FORTY-FOUR

ELI

The TV bolted over the espresso machine says the jury hung. Eleven to one. Mistrial. The reporter starts talking about retrial like that is a real possibility, but I know better. The girl is tired, the DA likes his numbers, and the man who cornered her in a stairwell gets to drive home tonight with the windows down.

I read the whole arc off the chyron in about four seconds. I’ve seen it enough times to know the shape.

My coffee’s gone cold in my hands. I keep them wrapped around the cup anyway. Flat. Still. These hands spent two hours at the learning center earlier, walking a fifty-two-year-old student through the gap between their and there, watching forty years of shame fall off his face when the sentence finally held together. Good hands. Teacher’s hands. Usually, I keep them in that box. Tonight, I’m about to open it in front of Dean.

We do this most weeks, Dean and me. Even though it’s now summer break, I still have my classes at the learning center. Wednesday’s finishes at eight, giving me enough time to get to the support group for people connected to victims at eight-thirty. Once that’s done, the two of us are always the last to leave—the ones who stack the chairs, who don’t have anyone at home asking where we’ve been. Then coffee, if the place down the block is still open. We don’t talk about the group. We mostly talk about nothing. It’s the most honest hour of my week, which tells you everything you need to know about the rest of it.

Across the table, Dean watches the screen with me. He doesn’t fill the silence. He never does—just lets it sit there between us like a third chair, comfortable in it the way most people aren’t. It’s one of the things I trust about him. It’s also the thing I’m here to measure.

You’d never make him for any of this. Tall, built like he does something honest with his hands—solid, not gym-mirror big. Black hair, blue eyes, a jaw drawn with a ruler. Clark Kent with the glasses off.

The first night he walked into that church basement I had him pegged for a firefighter, a Little League coach, somebody’s dependable older brother. Took me weeks to understand the stillness wasn’t peace.

“Did you follow this case?” Dean asks, nodding at the TV.

I shake my head. “Don’t need to. Outcomes always the same. Legal system’s broken beyond repair.”

“Yeah.” He turns his cup a slow half-circle on the table. “Group’s going to be rough next week. Marian’s daughter was the same story. Same ending.” He says it evenly. Dean says everything evenly. “She’ll want to talk about forgiveness. She always does.”

“And you?”

“Gave up on forgiveness a while back. It’s a lot of work to feel worse.”

That’s the closest Dean comes to a joke. I almost smile.

I think about his sister. I don’t know the whole of it—he’s said maybe three sentences about her the entire time I’ve knownhim, and I’ve never pushed, because I know what it costs to be pushed. But I know she’s gone now. The assault didn’t kill her. The months after did—the morning no one got to her in time. And after that the shape of Dean’s life was never the same.