Page 269 of The Lies We Play

He doesn't take my hand off his wrist.

He turns his arm just enough to make room for what he is about to do, and then his right thumb finds my left wrist underneath my cuff—the wrist I have been gripping for ten years in private and beneath fabric—and presses there, against my own trinity-knot, with the same involuntary pressure I have just put on his.

My breath leaves in just a line of air that gives up trying to be ordered and goes where the body wants it.

I don't know how long we stand in the doorway.

It can't be more than ten seconds.

It is, by the measurement my body is using tonight, an hour inside the hour.

Creed steps back into the apartment first.

I follow.

He closes the door behind me.

The sound is soft. Expensive. Final in a way doors should not be allowed to sound.

For one irrational second, every part of me listens for a lock.

There is one. Of course, there is one. A low, discreet click that belongs to a penthouse designed by people who understand money, privacy, and fear as neighboring concepts. My pulse reacts before my mind can. My thumb finds the modified cuff link. Press once, Aren said, and I am at the door in under ninety seconds.

I don't press.

Creed notices my hand.

He notices everything.

He says nothing.

The apartment opens beyond the entry in clean lines and muted light. Wide-plank floors. Low furniture. Floor to ceiling glass, the city beyond it blurred by rain and distance. The view should feel grand. It doesn’t. It feels sealed off, like Manhattan has been placed behind a museum case. The lamps are warm, but the air still holds that hotel-cool hush of a place kept ready for someone who rarely lets himself come home.

The first impression is that it’s too clean.

Not empty. Not careless.

Worse.

It feels exactly like my apartment does. Perfectly arranged. Beautifully maintained. Unlived in. A place where a person can sleep, dress, leave, and never disturb the version of himself the room was designed to hold.

There is art on the walls that looks chosen by someone with excellent taste and no emotional investment in being understood. A bowl of green apples on the kitchen island.

“Do you want something to drink?” Creed asks.

His voice is controlled, but not flat. That is the problem with him. He is not cold. Cold would be easier. Cold would give me a wall to stand against.

This is restraint.

“No,” I say, too quickly.

His gaze moves over my face. “Water?”

The correction is almost gentle. Not “do you want.” Not a choice with a trapdoor under it. A practical offer. A man solving the easiest part of an impossible night.

I swallow. “Water would be good.”

He nods once, then moves to the kitchen.