Fox Kirby's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Fox slept on Nadine's couch for a week before he learned the shape of her days. She left at dawn and came back at dusk. She brought bread. She did not ask him questions. She watched him with the same patience she had used on the stairwell, and he felt the gold eye catching on her the way it caught on light before a storm. On the eighth night she came home late. He had cooked. He did not know why. He had cleaned the pan and set two plates and stood at the window looking out at the city, all those stacked towers and lit glass, the skyline she had opened her door onto. She stopped in the doorway. She looked at the plates. She looked at him. "You cooked." "I did." "Honestly, I thought you'd bolt by now." "I thought so too." She set her bag down. She came to the window and stood beside him. She was a head shorter. The gold thread in her locs caught the streetlight. "Why are you still here, Fox?" He kept his good eye on the glass. "You didn't ask me to go." "That's not a reason." "It's the only one I have." She turned to him. He turned to her. He had been looking for a way out of the room for eight days and had not found one, and he understood now that he had not been looking very hard. "I've been trying to find something wrong with you," she said. "For months. Since before the stairwell." "Months." "I saw you at the docks in October. You didn't see me." "What have you found?" "Nothing yet." "Keep looking," he said. "There's plenty." "I know there is. I don't care." He put his hand on the side of her face. She let him. Her skin was warm under his palm. He kissed her because he could not think of anything else to do with his hands, and because the part of him that had been counting exits since he was twelve had gone quiet for the first time in years. She kissed him back like she had decided a long time ago. They ate. They talked until the window went black behind them. She told him about her mother in Kingston. He told her about Rhys, the first time he had said the name out loud since the market street. His voice broke on it. She did not look away. Later, in her bed, she put her hand flat on his chest and said, "Stay." "I'll stay." He meant it when he said it. That was the trouble. He had crossed an ocean to get free of everything that could hold him, and he had walked up a staircase and let a woman with gold in her hair put a hand on his chest and been held anyway. He lay awake and watched the city burn its lights against the ceiling. He had found a home. He had not planned for one.