"So." Ronald reached across the little marble table and laid his hand over mine. He squeezed, warm and light. "Pike Place first. You can't come to Seattle and not watch them throw the fish. Then the ferry to Bainbridge. We can have lunch on the water."
"Mm."
He kept talking. Ferry schedules. A bakery he'd found on some travel blog. I was nodding at the right beats. I was sipping coffee at the right beats. Inside my head I was still underwater.
The bleach note under his cologne was gone now. It had been gone from the second I walked out of the bathroom. I had almost convinced myself I'd invented it.
Then the café went quiet.
Not loud quiet. Not the room turning to look. The subtler kind. The kind a wolf feels before a wolf knows why. The fine hair at the back of my neck stood up so sha
