Page 151 of Price of Angels

“Yeah.”

There were unsaid words building between them, as they climbed from the car. His words. Holly could feel them pushing at her, and she wanted to pull the pin that would release them, but wasn’t sure how to do it tactfully. And the more steps they took – into the house, up the stairs, into the loft – the more awkward things became.

The loft was as she’d left it, the air stuffy and warm, but pleasantly so, after the chill of outside. Sunlight fell in golden panels through the dormer windows, bright boxes on the floorboards.

Michael carried her bag in and set it down on the floor beside the bed. When he straightened, he scratched at his hair, his movements jerky, almost nervous. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll–”

“Michael.” She couldn’t stand this weirdness another second. At first, in the hospital, she’d thought it was just his lingering worry, and that he’d begin to relax. But instead he’d wound tighter and tighter. Screw tact – she had to have it out with him, bald and honest, because she could think of no other way to phrase what she wanted to say.

“Why did we come here?” she asked. “I thought we’d go to your place. You’ve got more room.”

It seemed miles that separated them, rather than a few feet of hardwood floor, as he stared at her with the most rattling, haunted expression in his hazel eyes, his face pulled tight with pain and regret, and something very like grief.

Holly pulled in a deep breath and felt the shifting of the silver cross against her chest. She was still wearing it. She couldn’t bear to take it off, because it had been his mother’s, and he’d given it to her.

“I’m going to my place,” he said, quietly. “And I brought you to your place.”

“But why is it your place and my place?” She felt the first sting of tears at the backs of her eyes. “I want it to be our place. Wherever that place is. I don’t want to be apart.”

He sighed, breath shaking on the exhale. “I know you think that now, but you don’t have to rush into anything. Take some time. Think about what you–”

“No!”

She startled both of them, her shout echoing through the open space of the loft.

“No,” she repeated, softer, throat aching with sudden desperation. “Don’t push me away. Not now, not when we have all this time now…” She drew in a shuddering breath. “How can you murder three men with a knife – how can you be that passionate – and then stand there and tell me you’ll give me time, and that you won’t rush and – How could you, Michael?”

He walked toward her. “Hol–”

Her stitches tugged and burned as she sucked in a huge breath. “Maybe it was only ever a transaction for you. Maybe it was a job,” she said, on the verge of sobbing. “But I love you! You have to know that by now. And maybe you think it’s because I never…or that I have emotional problems because of…or that because you killed them…but, Michael, it’s you! It’s because you’re you, and you’re so lonely, and I just want to love you–”

His arms banded around her, crushing her into his chest. His was breathing in deep, ragged draws, his lungs expanding beneath her face, where it was pressed to his shirtfront.

“I love you,” she said, her voice a broken, jagged thing. “It will only ever be you. Don’t push me away. Please, Michael, don’t push me away.” The tears spilled from her lashes, running hot down her face.

His face pressed against the top of her head, his breath shivering through her hair. “I don’t know how to do this,” he whispered. “Hol, I don’t…”

“Then we’ll learn together, won’t we?” She forced a croaking semblance of a laugh. “We’re both beginners.”

“You could have everything,” he said, miserably, against her ear.

“I do have everything. Everything I could ever want or need.” She clutched at the back of his jacket, burrowed against him.

His hands caught at her shoulders, her hair. “God,” he whispered.

In the warm fall of sunlight, she felt his promise, shaking through his bones and skin; felt it in the rush of his breath and the gentle stroke of his fingers. Love, and the future, and everything. Together.

Six Weeks Later

Walking was starting to become work. Not hard work. She wasn’t panting and huffing, but at this point in her pregnancy, Ava could feel the distance she’d walked in her legs; she felt the drain of fatigue as she adjusted her shoulder bag for the tenth time and let herself into the English building. It had been a long walk from the parking deck to her classroom, and the baby was making her feel every inch of it.

Some of it may have been the lack of caffeine. She’d expected, once she was used to going without, for her daily caffeine cravings to pass. No such luck. She was a writer; she needed her fix.

At the end of the hallway, students were reclined against the wall, playing with their phones, some cross-legged on the cold tile floor. So Pitts was late again, as usual. Ava sighed; she found a spot of bare wall, leaned back against it, and let her eyes drift aimlessly across the feet of the students across from her as she settled in to wait. Sometimes, Pitts was as much as an hour late; a time or two, his TA had appeared at ten after to inform them that the class was cancelled.

“Excuse me.”

Ava lifted her head in automatic response to the voice, and saw that one of her classmates was looking at her from across the hall.

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