Page 18 of Stay Close
Freshly showered and wearing an old pair of jeans and a Black Swan sweatshirt, I knock on her door, holding a bag of Sondish licorice and another bag of lightly sweetened popcorn, swiped from the guardroom. When Edie answers, she’s wearing a matching loungewear set, soft and clinging, and this is fine. Totally fine.
“I don’t have any particular baking show in mind,” she says, shifting stacks of books and research materials off the coffee table.
I locate the remote and turn on the television. The streaming service is in Sondish, and it takes a minute to work it out, but finally, I’m able to offer her a choice between100 Sondish PicklesandThe Absolutely Huge Competition—a baking-themedseries with a new challenge every week. We settle on the latter, and she wedges herself into the sofa, a patterned lap-blanket pulled up to her chin. I eye the deep chair set at a 90-degree angle. My neck is going to be killing me tomorrow, but I'm surprised to find that there’s not much I wouldn’t do to keep her from replaying the memory of being hunted by an overzealous student group all night.
I start for the chair, but she taps the spot next to her, pressing play. I perch next to her, and for the next 45 minutes, as we follow the baking mishaps of ten Sondish competitors, I’m in a state of hyper awareness I haven’t experienced since the time I went on a stakeout of a separatist compound located in bear territory.
Competitor Dirk is lamenting the wobbliness of his quiche when Edie shifts, bringing her hip against mine. We retreat, ignoring the electric spark brought on by contact.
“Do we think he had too many fillings?” I venture.
She shakes her head, cheeks slightly flushed. “No, it’s the wrong fillings.”
Edie clutches a throw pillow in front of her and resumes a new, distant position. That serves us well until the second round when we slide into each other as Ragnhild stumbles on the way to the judging platform, her cake teetering on its base. Edie’s hand wraps over my wrist and she sits up, tense with concentration.
I stare at my wrist, registering the contact with every nerve in my body. As slowly as long-ago glaciers retreating to thenorth, I feel myself slipping, the gap between us narrowing, inch by precarious inch.
Edie releases a pent-up breath as Ragnhild reaches the judge’s table and turns a smile on me. “That was close.”
Despite Seongan websites having named me “National Bodyguard of My Heart,” the truth is that I don’t have a normal dating life. I fly all over the world for assignments. My mail gets picked up by my landlady. I don’t even have a cat. There’s no way I could maintain a long-term relationship. No woman would put up with it. It has never mattered.
The poorly dubbed judge tells a competitor he wouldn’t feed this cake to a hog. “And hogs eat human remains, you know.”
Edie laughs, her shoulder brushing my own, and my heart flips.
How would I even make this work?
I don’t immediately register the danger of the question. I think in terms of logistics and challenges to be overcome in much the same way as I think of my job. Access the digital map, mark pinch points, memorize exits.
Then I realize what I’m doing and push myself to the corner of the sofa. Edie doesn’t look like something to be afraid of—a venomous snake or a target reaching into his coat, eyes shifting—but fear jolts through me as she chokes off her laugh and wipes her eyes with the heel of her hands. I don’t know how to handle this.
I stare at her face as the show rolls on in the background.
“Consider your ways, Ragnhild,” the host says. “Think before you act.”
“You should email me an agenda for next week,” I say, scrambling to my feet. “Not tonight. You need to rest. Tomorrow.”
Edie’s brows gather in confusion. She has no idea that she’s standing too close to an invisible cliff. No realization of the risk she’s running.
“There’s just another full week of being the referee in the Sondish/Vorburgian cage match,” she murmurs, clicking the remote. She stretches when she stands, and I want to tumble us back on the sofa, legs tangled up together. Right over the invisible cliff.
I draw enough air to speak. “Planning any field trips?”
She chews her lip. “If I go to these meetings at the Grousehof, watching presentations and shifting stacks of paper, I’m worried this will turn strictly into an academic question. They expect me to become a human calculator, striking out a grievance here, balancing it against a battle there.”
“Isn’t that the fairest way?”
She rakes a hand through her hair, and I want to pull her into my arms, continuing this discussion at closer quarters, tucking her head under my chin and running my hands along the curve of her back. I wouldn’t stop listening. On my honor as a Boy Scout.
“If I thought I could trust the data, yes, but everyone has an angle. It’s like an unmarked white van pulling up outside myhouse and having the driver tell me I’m about to be taken to a theme park but they’re going to have to blindfold me first and I should take their word for it.” Her mouth twitches with a smile. “Even if that’s where they really want to take me, I can’t just abandon caution for the promise of a few rollercoasters and a pineapple whip. I’m not an idiot. I can’t trust them.”
“You trust me.” That’s the remarkable thing about Edie. She puts herself in my hands so easily.
She presses her lips together. “You’re worthy of my trust.”
“So what do you really want?” I swallow. The answer is going to matter because I realize in this moment that I will move heaven and earth to give her whatever she asks for.
She smiles as she turns away, executing a bouncy pivot that makes me want to forget that I’m a professional. “I want to see the island.”
