Page 220 of ClickBack

He draws me back against him. “Then tonight’s done.”

I wake once before morning. His hand is warm against my stomach. Across the room, a black sleeve hangs from the open duffel.

For once, I leave something on the floor and go back to sleep.

Chapter 37

Giselle

Jeremy’s cousin has backed the U-Haul into Rae’s driveway at an angle that has brought three other men out to advise him. None of them is standing where he can see them in the mirror.

“Left,” one calls.

“His left or your left?” Trina asks from the porch.

“There’s only one left.”

She looks at me. “We’re going to be here until Christmas.”

The driver puts the truck in park, gets out, and walks around it. Two feet from the porch. Clear of the flower bed. The ramp has plenty of room.

“Y’all finished?” he asks.

Trina applauds. I would join her, but I’m holding the coffee she put in my hand while she searched for her phone. It is tucked beneath her chin, between the travel pillow and her neck.

“Don’t,” she says when I point.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“Your face has.”

Jarrett and Jeremy come through the door with Rae’s dresser. Jarrett walks backward, watching the step, and Jeremy tells him to lift his end a little higher.

“Mine or yours?” Jarrett asks.

Trina bends over laughing. Jeremy looks between them, confused, then decides the dresser matters more.

We have been here since seven. Jarrett drove us from my house after making sure I could find both shoes. I slept in pieces, waking with something else I should have said to Rae, then remembering I had already said too much of the wrong thing for years. Each time, he was still beside me. Once he woke enough to pull me back from the edge of the mattress. He didn’t ask what time it was or whether I wanted to talk.

Now he has a smear of dust on his shirt and one of Zion’s basketball socks stuck to the dresser’s back panel. I peel it off as he passes.

“Evidence,” I tell him.

“Wasn’t mine.”

“I ruled you out.”

He looks at the sock in my hand, then at me, and smiles before he turns toward the ramp.

Graves arrives with another tray of coffee and a pair of work gloves hanging from his pocket. Trina takes the cup he offers and reads the lid.

“You remembered.”

“You had me fix it last time.”

“Because it was wrong.”

“And here we are.”