Page 58 of Lady and the Butcher
Aligned sounded like a clean word for something messier.
The part of me that had leaned into his palm last night wanted to nod and be done. Another part—annoying, necessary—counted the costs.
His money had moved whole pieces of my life in a night. Rooms emptied when he walked into them. A private dining room had become ours because he looked at it. I liked the way power sat on him. I also knew power always came with strings, even if the man holding them swore he’d never pull.
Stephen’s face on the seawall flashed across my mind, the tightness around his mouth. Alpha Mail had promised anonymity and clean edges. This was neither. It was a man with his own rules rewriting mine in pencil so soft I could pretend I’d written them myself.
I could say yes to the net he’d knotted under me and still keep a hand on the rope. I could want the way he touched me and still leave a light on in the part of my brain that counted exits. I wasn’t surrendering. I was negotiating with the part of me that would be left to sweep if anything shattered.
My phone chimed again. A photo from Maria—tiny flailing hand, furious and perfect. Under it:You’re our miracle worker. Thank you.A second photo: her partner’s tear-slick grin against her hair. The message after:We’ll bring cookies by the shop when you’re open again.
We’re open today, I typed, and meant it in a way I wouldn’t have dared yesterday.All day.
“You’re going in?” he asked.
“I have to see it,” I said. “I have to meet the Mei you conjured and the answering service voice and the shelves you decided I needed.”
His mouth tilted. “I didn’t buy shelves.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I can’t handle shelves.”
“I did buy a small fridge for donor milk,” he said, like it was nothing.
I pressed my fingertips into my eye sockets. “You bought me a milk fridge.”
“I’ll return it, if you prefer your milk warm,” he said.
“Stop,” I replied, laughing into my palms. “You’ll make me love you.”
We both heard the word ring the air-bell. I took my hands down slowly. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t run. His face didn’t change at all, which was somehow worse and better than any reaction he could have given me. He crossed the room in three quiet steps and set two fingers under my chin again, the way he had last night when he wanted me to look him in the eye and tell the truth.
“Don’t be careful with that word around me,” he said. “Just be honest.”
“I’m not there.”
“I know,” he said. “I wasn’t asking for it.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
“For today,” he said, thumb brushing a small arc against my jaw like punctuation. “For you to go to your shop and let people carry pieces for you. For you to let me be a problem you want, not one you have to solve.”
I didn’t trust my voice. I nodded. He kissed my forehead like I was something he respected. The tenderness of that undid me more than almost anything else he’d done.
We dressed—me in high-waisted denim and a soft tee with my shop logo, him in the shirt from last night. It felt domestic in a way that should have scared me. It didn’t. He called down for the car like he owned the elevator shafts. I tucked my hair into a clip and gave up on mourning the blowout—the curl had already surrendered to duty. My hands remembered the muscle memory of a messy knot and my mouth remembered a toothbrush and lip balm. That was enough.
At the door, he caught my wrist. “Tonight,” he said. Not a question.
I swallowed. “Tonight.” It came out rough. “I want the whole thing when it’s ours, not rationed between contractions and phone calls.”
His mouth tipped. “Good. You’ll be starving by then.”
“I already am.”
“Then hold.” He leaned in, almost a kiss, still not giving it. “No shortcuts. No getting lost in the middle.”
I hated how much I loved that. “So, we agree,” I said. “No sex until after I shower and eat something that isn’t birth center coffee.”
“After you shower again,” he echoed. “After I watch you eat. After I decide where to put you.”
