44

Marianna.

Duane's hands are on my face.

He's... wiping my face. With tissues. Like I'm a child who's made a mess at the dinner table.

I'm standing here—stitched forehead, swollen eyes, approximately zero dignity remaining—while he dabs at my tear-streaked cheeks with Kleenex.

My hands don't know what to do. They hover awkwardly in the space between us, fingers fidgeting with the edges of the tissues he's already used, twisting them into tight spirals until the paper starts to disintegrate.

"I can't pay you back." The words come out thick. Waterlogged. "The money. The stitches. Everything. I can't—"

"Stop."

"No, you don't understand. I've been calculating and it's three thousand four hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents. That's just what I owe you so far. Not counting today. Not counting however many more disasters I'm going to accumulate between now and—"

"Marianna." He says my name like a period at the end of a sentence. Final. "Stop."

"I don't have that kind of money. I don't have ANY money. My first paycheck doesn't come for another week and even then it's not enough. It'll take me months to pay you back. Maybe years. And I keep—" My voice cracks. "—I keep taking from you. Living here. Eating your food. Wearing your clothes. Breaking myself on your floors. I'm like a financial black hole. Everything I touch turns to debt."

There's a specific kind of shame that comes with being poor in front of rich people. It's not just embarrassment. It's this visceral, full-body awareness of the gap between you—the chasm that separates "borrowing eighteen hundred dollars for stitches without thinking about it" from "having fourteen dollars in your checking account and considering which organ you could sell."

And standing here in Duane Richter's apartment, crying into his tissues, bleeding on his floors, owing him more money than I've ever had in my life—

I want to disappear.

I want to sink through the expensive marble and dissolve into the Miami water table and never have to face the math again.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper.

Duane's thumb brushes my cheekbone. Catching a tear I didn't know had escaped.

And then—

He kisses me.

Not like last time. Not rushed or desperate or interrupted by his own better judgment.

This is different.

His mouth is gentle. Questioning. Like he's asking permission even as he's taking it, like he's trying to communicate something his words can't.

I freeze for exactly 0.3 seconds—long enough for my brain to catalog the sensation: his lips are softer than they look, he tastes like coffee, there's a scar on his lower lip I never noticed before, this is happening this is actually happening—

And then I kiss him back.

My hands find his shirt. Fist in the fabric. Pull him closer because closer isn't close enough, because I need—

I don't know what I need.

But my body does. My treacherous, broken, freezing-in-every-other-context body is suddenly very awake. Very present. Very insistent that this needs to continue, needs to escalate, needs to—

His hands slide down. To my waist. To my hips.

Heat floods through me. The kind I only feel in dreams. The kind that pools low in my belly and makes me ache in ways I didn't know I could ache when I'm conscious.

I press closer. Make a sound—half gasp, half something else—against his mouth.

And Duane stops.

Just... stops.

Pulls back. His hands leave my body like I've burned him.

"No." His voice is rough. Wrecked. But certain. "No, I can't—"

"What?" I'm breathing hard. My lips feel swollen. "Why—"

"If I do this now—" He runs a hand through his hair. Won't look at me. "—I'm using your guilt. You understand that, right? You're standing here feeling like you owe me something, and if I—" He stops. Breathes. "I won't do that to you."

The words land like a bucket of ice water.

I'm searching my body for an answer. Trying to separate the threads of what I'm feeling—arousal, yes, definitely arousal, but also gratitude and shame and relief and debt and that specific desperation of someone who's been drowning and suddenly found a life raft.

Is this desire?

How do you even tell?

"I don't—" I start. Stop. My hands are shaking. "I don't know what I want."

The confession sits between us. Ugly. Honest.

Duane finally looks at me. Really looks at me. Those dark eyes that see too much.

"I know," he says quietly.

He steps forward. But not to kiss me again.

He presses his lips to my forehead. Right above the stitches. So gentle it makes my chest ache.

"Go take a shower," he says against my skin. "Try to sleep. I'll stay with you until you do."

"You don't have to—"

"I know I don't have to." He pulls back. His expression is unreadable again. Back to the mask. "But I'm going to anyway. So go."

The shower is scalding hot and entirely unsatisfying.

I keep my stitches dry—Dr. Morrison's orders—which means I can't wash my hair properly, can't let the water hit my face the way I want to, can't drown myself in steam and heat the way I need to.

Instead I just stand there, water pounding my shoulders, trying to understand what the fuck just happened.

I'm using your guilt.

The question makes me want to throw up.

I turn off the water. Stand there dripping.

My body is still humming. Still remembering the press of his hands, the heat of his mouth, the way my nervous system came online in a way it almost never does.

That has to mean something.

Doesn't it?

I towel off. Pull on his clothes—another t-shirt, another pair of sweatpants, layers of borrowed fabric that smell like him and make me feel both safe and pathetic.

When I emerge from the bathroom, Duane is sitting on the floor next to my bed.

Same position as last night. Back against the mattress, long legs stretched out, looking like he's settling in for a siege.

"You don't have to—" I start.

"Get in bed, Marianna."

I get in bed.

He doesn't look at me. Just sits there, solid and present, his shoulder barely touching the mattress.

"Does it hurt?" he asks after a minute.

"The stitches?"

"Yes."

"Yeah." I touch my forehead gingerly. The sutures are tight. Pulling. "But less than before."

Silence.

Then: "I meant what I said."

My stomach clenches. "Duane—"

"It doesn't matter." His voice is flat. Final. "You're not paying me back. Consider it a loan from your brother if you need to. Or a signing bonus for working with the team. Or a gift. I don't care what you call it. But you're not—" He stops. Breathes. "You're not going to make yourself sick trying to calculate repayment schedules, understand?"

I don't understand.

I understand money. Money is concrete. Quantifiable. Money is the only language I speak fluently because it's the only thing that's ever been scarce enough to matter.

But this—

Gifts don't exist in my world. Not gifts this size. Gifts come with strings, with expectations, with fine print you don't discover until you're already tangled.

"Why?" I whisper.

Silence. Long enough that I think he's not going to answer.

Then: "Your brother asked me to look after you."

Right. Of course. Marco.

It always comes back to Marco.

"Go to sleep," Duane says. His hand finds mine in the dark. Squeezes once. Lets go. "Close your eyes. Breathe. Stop calculating. Just... exist for a few hours without turning yourself into a balance sheet."

I close my eyes.