Page 94 of So Steady

“Why?”

A beat.

“Because I’ll have you for as long as you’ll have me. But this isnt going to be more than what it is now.”

Another hairline fracture, the splitting of something delicate and lovely that lived deep inside her and between them both. “What isn’t it?”

There was a silence, and she must have developed a sixth sense for Noah’s silences because this one was slippery and cold-blooded as a snake. She couldn’t stand it.

“Can you please take me home?”

He was silent a second, maybe surprised, maybe just thinking. Then he sat up. “Of course.”

Chapter 17

It was three in the morning when they reached Brunswick. Noah’s eyes burned and his back ached, but he wasn’t tired. He’d been chain smoking, but the adrenaline would have been enough on his own. He’d tried to call Paula on their last petrol stop, but she’d hung up on him. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining his house destroyed, burned down, overrun with scumbags. Beside him, Nicole sat bolt upright, her eyes glassy.

“Almost there,” he said, and she nodded like a porcelain doll come to life.

They pulled up outside Silver Daughters and he saw the studio lights were on. His stomach contracted. He’d expected Sam and Tabby would have gone to bed by now. Nicole unbuckled her belt, a dreamy look on her face. She drifted out of the van and toward the door of the studio like a sleepwalker. Noah watched her go, wanting to reverse and head to his place and knowing that’d only make things worse.He reached for his cigarettes and remembered he’d smoked the last an hour ago.

“Fuck it.” He pushed open the driver side door and followed Nicole into Silver Daughters. The tiger doorbell roared as he stepped inside the familiar building, but he couldn’t see Nicole, only a grim-faced Tabby, looking unusually washed out in an oversized white hoodie.

“Where’s…?”

“Nicole? In bed. Stay here, Sam’s coming.”

It was strange how different she looked when she wasn’t smiling, her heart-shaped face appeared older and—he felt stupid for thinking it—mean. There was something strange in her face, neither Edgar, nor the twins. Her mother, maybe, that mysterious, reckless woman he’d never met.

He heard footsteps overhead and guessed it was Nicole in her high heels, getting ready for bed. He remembered how she’d looked sitting across from him in the restaurant and his insides ached. Still, he was glad she wasn’t going to be here for this. That she’d get some sleep.

The door at the back of the studio creaked open and the six half-spaniel puppies burst in. They rushed around his heels in a black and gold surge. He bent down to pet them, and Lilah latched onto his finger. She was his favourite, cuddly and mischievous and in total awe of Nicole. He stroked her soft head as Sam’s battered Doc Martens entered his line of vision.

“Hey, Noah.”

If Tabby looked mean, Sam looked off balance. She was pale and her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Noah wouldn’t have thought he could feel more like a shitheel, but he did. “Sammy…”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe everything that’s happened tonight.”

“I’m sorry about Paula. Did she do any damage?”

To his shock, Sam’s eyes filled with tears. “I wish she had. That would have been easier to deal with.”

“What do you mean?”

Tabby glared at him. “Are you serious right now?”

Yes? No? Noah gritted his teeth. “Look, I’m half dead from driving, and after everything that went down, I don’t get what the problem actually is. What’s wrong?”

Sam looked to Tabby—a bad sign. Noah had never known her to defer power like that.

Tabby straightened up. “Okay, so here’s what happened—we’re at work, minding our own business, wondering where Nicole is but notsuperworried. Then I take a call from Aaron, who’s giving birth to the world’s biggest cow because his neighbour said some tattooed guy had sex with his fiancée on his bedroom floor.”

“Ex-fiancée.”

For the briefest moment it looked like Tabby might smile, but the light in her eyes vanished as soon as it came. “Ex-fiancé. Anyway, I hung up, a bit pissed you and Nix snuck off without telling us, but whatever. Then this woman comes in reeking of Aldi vodka and demanding to see Sam.”

Noah looked at Sam, who nodded. “She was a mess, drunk. And this guy was waiting for her out front; he was fucking scary.”

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