Page 85 of When Sinners Fear
“The money doesn’t even register for me, Peyton.”
“Okay, but I thought ….” She looks at the ground and then shakes herself down about something to look back at me. “I thought this was for us, both of us,allof us, and yet you don’t seem interested.”
“In a fucking apartment? You’re goddamn right I’m not. This is to get you through the next year safely, which I’d far rather wasn’t happening at all and you were coming back with me. But you don’t want that, so I’m giving in and letting you be where you want to be for that time. After that, we decide on where we’re gonna be. You want a house now instead?”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“Then what?” She pulls in a sharp breath, like she doesn’t know how to get the words she wants out of her mouth. “Talk to me. Tell me what you want. I can't solve problems until I know what needs fixing.” She stares out into the road, pinching her lower lip with her teeth. “Is this about you needing more desperate romanticism from me?”
“Maybe.” I smile and look around the space, leaning my back on the car next to her. “In fact, yes. You’re here like a whirlwind with your learning facts in minutes, throwing money around and acting all possessive, and I’d like to know that the home we’re going to live in means something to you.”
“It will. But this isn’t that. Your apartment means something to me because you’re going to be in it.”
“See, that’s what I mean. No sentiment involved.”
My arms cross over each other. “You want me to find sentiment about an apartment that means little to me other than the fact that you’re safely in it?”
“Well, maybe, yes.”
I run through a variety of poems in my head, searching years of study for something. “Home’s not merely four square walls, though with pictures hung and gilded: Home is where affection calls, filled with shrines the heart hath builded.” I turn my head sideways, smiling at her. “How’s that?”
“Like learned facts instead of theorising.” She looks up at me and snorts, as if that wasn’t what she was after either. “At least it doesn't sound very Poe like.”
“It isn’t Poe, it’s Charles Swain. But until I get you and this baby with me permanently, in a house that we’ve both chosen to live in forourlife together, that’s all you’re getting. I can’t fawn over physicality until I’ve heard the sounds it makes and the silence it brings. Like I’ve heard you. Like Ihearyou. Choose for you, Peyton. You’re my priority. As long as you’re there, I’ll follow.”
She smiles and leans her head into my chest. “That’s quite sweet, I suppose.”
Hmm. Well, not much else about me is.
CHAPTER THIRTY
PEYTON
As long as you’re there, I’ll follow.
He’s like a whirlwind.
In less than twenty-four hours, he’s arrived, told me he loves me, and set upon giving me a home. Although there’s been no time to process it all, he’s offered me a way through this I hadn’t considered – or even thought about. If I take it at face value, it’s what I want. I’ll be able to finish my PhD and get my freedom. And, in a way, I understand Knox. At least, I understand us. But bigger questions still lurk in the shadows. A part of me wants to keep them there until I have to confront them. It’s cowardly. I know that. But when he’s here, quoting Poe and learning Volker Heine’s work for me, it’s hard to see the dangerous side of him.
Or, it’s easier to forget it.
Now, we can pick up where the date was heading. I don't want to forget everything we’ve shared, though. The connection we have has been forged in pain and darkness. We were each other’s light, and that’s important to me. It might be why I have these irrational feelings as well, but I need to stop thinking of them that way. They make sense to me deep down inside, and isn’t that what matters? He’s my light despite everything else. I’ll accept and learn to live my life. Like I said I would. Like I told him I would. We just need to work out where I’m going to live because everything we’ve seen so far is ridiculous and over the top, and I can’t see myself in any of them. It’s a waste of money for one thing – money that I’d rather see go to Evie and Matthew and their future. Not that it's my money.
“So, which one?” he asks, flicking through my book again.
We’re back at the diner we had breakfast in, more coffee for him and I’m happy with an iced tea.
“Knox, they’re all ridiculous. They’re huge. I don’t – we don’t – need four bedrooms. I don’t need access to a swimming pool or a gym either.”
He reads on. “The apartments have security, the lobbies are manned, and they have space for you and the baby. Pick one. This doesn’t need to be an argument.”
“No, it doesn’t, but you said it was my choice. Let me take a look at options from the agent based on what I think is reasonable.”
His head rears up. “I’m not gonna compromise, Peyton. Not now you’re carrying my child.”
“So, it’s your way or nothing?” I frown.
“I’ve told you the position I’m taking for you. That’s the biggest compromise I’ve ever made for anything or anyone. How many bedrooms the apartment has doesn’t register for me, but your protection does.”