Chapter Twenty-One: The Parking Garage

The federation’s counsel agreed to see her at eight the next morning. That was the only good news the day produced, and Naomi took it gratefully.

She stayed late to log the camp reports, because it was easier than going home to an apartment that still smelled like someone else’s cleaning products. When she finally shut down her computer, the corridor lights had dimmed to their night setting. She took the stairs down to the staff garage, nearly empty, the concrete cool and faintly oily. She had her keys out when she heard footsteps behind her, unhurried and familiar.

“You left without saying goodnight,” Henrik said.

He stood a few feet away with his jacket over one arm, tired, and clearly a man who had followed her down four flights of stairs and had no intention of pretending otherwise.

“I thought you’d gone home.”

“I was going to. Then I watched you walk out of that office like you were carrying the entire building.” He stopped an arm’s length away. “I wanted to check that someone was being kind to you.”

Naomi opened her mouth to say she was fine. It wouldn’t come out.

“I read forty-one pages today about people who were paid to manage me,” she said instead. “The worst part wasn’t Margaret, or even Ivy. It was how easily I walked in, smiling.”

“You trusted someone you were told to trust,” Henrik said. “That’s what they were counting on. It’s also the one thing I hope you never stop being capable of.”

It was such a quiet thing to say that it undid her more than any speech could have. She thought of the van, the gate, every ordinary morning at camp when he had simply been there. This wasn’t a storm or a crisis. It was a choice, and it frightened her less than she’d expected.

She crossed the distance herself.

“Naomi.” A low warning with no resistance in it. “If this is the day talking, I’d rather wait.”

“It isn’t the day.” She set her palm flat against his chest and felt his heartbeat answer. “I’ve been sure since the dock. I just needed to be sure on a normal evening, in a bad parking garage, with nothing exploding.”

Something in his face broke open. His hand found her jaw, hers found his collar, and she kissed him first. It was nothing like the boathouse. It was slower and more deliberate, with a hunger the boathouse hadn’t had room for. Her back met the cool pillar and he followed, one hand braced beside her head, his mouth moving from her lips to the corner of her jaw.

“Say if you want me to stop,” he murmured.

“Don’t you dare,” Naomi said, and pulled him back.

Her scarred hand had slipped into his hair, and she realized she hadn’t thought about it once. It was just a hand, doing what she wanted. He caught her wrist and pressed a kiss to the rough skin across her knuckles, and her breath shuddered out of her.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

They froze, foreheads together. It buzzed again.

“Ignore it,” Henrik said, not entirely joking.

“It’s Priya. She wouldn’t call twice unless it mattered.” Naomi pulled it out with unsteady fingers. “Priya.”

“Please tell me you’re sitting down.” Priya’s voice had lost all its warmth. “My friend finally told me who asked her to pass along Margaret’s name. I’m not saying it over the phone. I’m twenty minutes away. Stay where you are.”

The line went dead. Naomi lowered the phone slowly. The heat between them hadn’t gone anywhere. It had only been set down carefully, like something she intended to come back for.

“I’m sorry,” she began.

“Don’t.” Henrik straightened his collar, his hands not quite steady, a rueful curve to his mouth. “I’d like to do that again at greater length, somewhere with fewer concrete pillars.”

She laughed, then let it fade, because the next part mattered more. “I don’t want this to be what happens in the gaps between everything else. A stolen moment, then a crisis, then another stolen moment. I want to talk about what we’re doing. Properly, with the lights on.”

“So do I.” He said it without hesitation. “I’m not good at half measures, Naomi. I don’t want something casual that fits around the chaos. I want to be in the middle of your life, if you’ll have me there.”

“Then tomorrow. After the lawyer, after whatever Priya says. We sit down somewhere ordinary and decide it. On purpose.”

“On purpose,” he agreed, and it sounded like a promise. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Until then, I’m not leaving you alone in a garage to hear this.”

They waited side by side against the pillar, shoulders touching, saying nothing. When headlights swept the far wall and a silver car rolled in, Naomi straightened. Priya was out before the engine died, pale and set, a folded sheet of paper in her hand. Her eyes flicked to Henrik, to the rumpled collar, to the color in Naomi’s face. Her eyebrows rose a quarter inch. She had the grace not to say a word.

“Whatever it is,” Naomi said, “he stays.”

Priya nodded and held out the paper. “She wrote it down because she couldn’t say it out loud.”

Naomi unfolded the page. A single name, in a neat, careful hand.

She read it once. Then again, and the garage seemed to tilt around her.

It was someone she had never once thought to suspect.