Page 50 of Lady and the Butcher
Atticus didn’t nod like he’d won. He sat very still like I’d given him a piece of glass he didn’t intend to drop.
We fell into lighter talk, because you can only sit so close to the edge of a cliff for so long. Alicia mentioned a book she’d recently read. Stephen told an absurd story about the twins trying to borrow my blender for “a science project” that would have cost the security deposit on their apartment. We laughed. It helped.
Under the table, Atticus’s hand found my knee. He didn’t move it. He didn’t stroke. He set it there like he was anchoring me to the bench so I wouldn’t float off from wanting. The contact was a quiet claim.
Not a show. Not for them. For me.
Alicia watched me watch him and then, with the grace of a woman who understood more than she said, switched the subject to herself so I could not answer any questions with my face. “I tried that barre class Stephen said you like,” she told me. “I discovered new muscles and new hate.”
“You’ll love it in two weeks,” I said. “You’ll hate it again in three months. Then you’ll quit and go back. It’s a cycle.”
“Like the moon,” she said, and I choked on a laugh.
Stephen checked his watch. “We should—” He stopped. The pause lengthened, attention sharpening in his eyes. I saw the trail of his thoughts like footprints.
His gaze cut to Atticus. “Wait. Is this that thing?” His voice didn’t rise. It thinned. “The—” He didn’t say the name. He didn’t have to. “Is that what you’re doing with my sister?”
Alicia’s hand closed around his wrist. “Stephen,” she said, warning and plea together.
Atticus didn’t flinch. He didn’t lean back. He didn’t puff up. He looked at my brother like he’d been preparing for this exactline of query since he was born. “I’m with her,” he said. “Not with a ‘thing.’”
“That’s not an answer,” Stephen shot back.
“It’s the only one you get from me,” Atticus said, mild as an open palm and somehow harder than a fist. “From her, you’ll get everything she wants you to know and nothing she doesn’t. That’s how it works.”
Alicia squeezed Stephen’s wrist again, harder this time. “Breathe.”
He did, because he’s a good man when reminded. He stared at me. “Sim?”
I could tell him the truth in a dozen configurations. None of them would satisfy the part of him that wanted to wrap me in bubble wrap. I picked the one that was both honest and kind.
“I wrote a letter,” I said. “It found the person it was supposed to. I’m where I want to be.”
Stephen’s jaw flexed. “And he’s your?—”
“My choice,” I said.
The words landed. I watched them hit him, watched the understanding and the jealousy and the protectiveness jostle for space. He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the paper cup like it could sand the feeling down.
“Do you trust him?” he asked, eyes on me, not on Atticus.
“Yes,” I said, the answer simple even if nothing else was. “And I trust myself.”
Something in him loosened a notch. “And if it goes sideways?”
“I’ll tell you before the smoke clears.” A promise I could keep.
He looked at Atticus one beat longer. “If she texts me and I don’t like the words, I won’t call first.”
“Understood,” Atticus said. No flinch. No bravado. Just fact.
Stephen nodded once, a rough treaty. “Okay.”
Alicia exhaled the breath she’d been holding for both of us and stood, dusting sugar from her hands. “I’m going to put this cup in the bin before a seagull grabs it.”
Stephen rose with her, still conflicted and trying not to be messy about it. He leaned toward me, pressed a quick kiss to my hair like we were in a kitchen and not out here under a sky full of people. “Text me when you’re home,” he said, then made a face, self-aware and still a brother. “Or when you’re done not being home.”
“Love you,” I said, because the kindest thing you can do to a man trying to be good is remind him he already is.
