The devil's soft spot

Dangerous proximity

He came to the pharmacy at closing time.

She was alone — Tolu had left at five, the last customer at five-forty-five — and she was cashing up when she heard the door and looked up and he was there.

Dark shirt. No jacket. The top button undone in a way that felt like the only concession he ever made to being human.

She looked at him for exactly one second longer than necessary.

He noticed.

"You should lock that door after Tolu leaves," he said.

"I was about to," she said. "You're early."

"I said I'd call." He came to the counter. "I didn't say I wouldn't come."

She looked at him across the counter.

"There's a difference," she said.

"There is," he agreed. The almost-smile. "I'm revising my methods."

She held his gaze.

Then she looked back at her cash register because looking at him for too long in an empty pharmacy at closing time was the kind of decision that led to other decisions.

"Update," she said. "You said you'd keep me informed."

"I did." He came around the counter.

She stilled.

He had never come behind her counter before. The counter was her space — her territory, the line between her world and everything else. He crossed it like he had been given permission which she supposed in a way she had given him.

He stopped beside her. Close. Not touching. Just — close.

She could feel the warmth of him.

She kept her eyes on the register.

"Okafor made a mistake today," he said quietly. His voice was lower from this proximity. She noticed that. "He moved the last of the documents to a location we already had under surveillance. By tomorrow morning we'll have everything we need."

She processed that.

"It's almost over?" she said.

"Almost." He was looking at the side of her face. She could feel it. "A few more days."

"And then?"

"And then the evidence goes to the people who can use it." A pause. "And Okafor becomes someone else's problem."

She turned to look at him.

Which was a mistake.

Because he was closer than she had calculated and the pharmacy was very quiet and the evening light was coming through the window at an angle that did something unreasonable to the planes of his face.

She held her ground.

"And the threat to me?" she said.

"Gone," he said. "When he falls he won't have the capacity to threaten anyone." His eyes were steady on hers. Dark and direct and full of something carefully managed. "You'll be free."

"Free," she said quietly.

"From the danger." A pause. Something shifted in his expression. "Not from—" he stopped.

"Not from what?" she said softly.

He looked at her.

The pharmacy was completely still.

"Not from me," he said quietly. "Unless you want to be."

She looked at him.

At this man who had walked into her life through danger and stayed through choice. Who carried grief like architecture — built into everything he was. Who had sat across the street in a grey car and touched her cheek like she was something worth being careful with.

"I don't want to be," she said.

He exhaled. Quietly. Like he had been holding something.

He lifted his hand and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

His fingers barely grazed her jaw and she felt it everywhere.

She didn't move.

She barely breathed.

His hand stilled at her jaw — not holding, just resting, the lightest possible contact — and he looked at her with an expression she had no defence against.

"Kamsi," he said. Low. Just her name.

"Yes," she said.

"I'm going to kiss you."

Not a question. But his eyes were asking.

She answered by closing the distance.

One step. Just one. Eliminating the space between them.

And then his mouth was on hers.

Soft at first — careful, like everything he did — and then not soft at all. His hand moved from her jaw to the back of her neck and she felt the warmth of his palm and the pharmacy and the register and everything else disappeared entirely.

She kissed him back.

Completely. Without hesitation. The way she did everything she decided to do.

He made a sound low in his throat — something controlled finally losing its control — and pulled her closer and she went because she wanted to and because this was the thing she had been not examining for two weeks and it turned out the thing was this.

This exactly.

When they finally separated she kept her eyes closed for a moment.

She heard him breathing. Not steady. Which was the most satisfying thing she had ever noticed.

She opened her eyes.

He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before — open and undone and completely unguarded in a way that had nothing to do with control.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"Yes," he said.

She looked at her cash register.

"I need to finish cashing up," she said.

He laughed. That real full laugh. In her pharmacy. At her.

"Of course you do," he said.

She turned back to the register.

But she was smiling so hard she had to recount three times.

He stayed.

He leaned against her counter and watched her work and said nothing and the silence was the warmest thing she had ever stood inside of.

When she was done she turned off the lights.

He held the door while she locked up.

On the pavement outside her pharmacy in the Lagos evening he stood close — not touching, just close — and looked at her.

"Have dinner with me," he said.

Not a question.

She looked at him.

At the undone top button.

At the expression that was still slightly unguarded.

At this man who had kissed her in her own pharmacy and laughed in her space and was now