Why was Elle still here? Why wasn’t she out the door yet? He could smell her hair, damp as it was, and the lingering caress of her perfume, too faint to identify individual notes. That delicate fragrance was all it took to topple him, leaving him half-drowned and reeling.

Words failed him. Words that would have sent the annoying, belligerent woman scampering out the door like a kicked dog.

He didn’t want her. He didn’t need her. And he hadn’t needed anyone for a long time. And if time had taught him one thing, it was that any feeling, any emotion, would eventually pass. That’s how time worked. It was like the ocean working on a beer bottle; rolling it from submerged sand-dune to submerged sand-dune, smoothing it, buffing it to a dull glow. Leaving it dull and abandoned on the shore, indistinguishable from thousands of other bottles -rendered unidentifiable by time and the patience of that mass of water.

Elle trembled. It was a tiny but unmistakable movement.

“You’re cold,” he heard himself say. The words came from far away, and sounded strange through the roaring in his ears.

“Yes.” She admitted this with a slight dip of her head, but without releasing that hold on his eyes.

“You should…” Blake released one of her wrists, trailed his fingers up her arm. The flesh beneath his fingertips was chilled, slightly damp, smooth like that glass pebble on the shore of his mind.

She exhaled slowly, that tiny tremor transforming into a quick shudder. Blake gripped her shoulder, his thumb touching the hollow in her throat where darkness collected.

“You should get out these wet clothes.”

He expected her to laugh. Perhaps even giggle. It was the corniest thing he’d ever said. Ever heard anyone say. But she didn’t laugh. Perhaps she hadn’t heard because, for long moments, she stared up at him without moving.

His hand moved autonomously, releasing her other wrist and trailing up her arm. Wrapping over her shoulder. Stroking the other side of her neck. He worked wet strands of hair away from her throat, making her shiver again.

He waited then. Waited for some kind of signal from her. A nod, a glimmer in her eyes. But she just watched him, wide eyes expectant and unblinking.

A small sound lifted his eyes. He looked up, arms going rigid. In the corner, something small slunk along the ground, pausing to sniff the air before scurrying along the lintel and disappearing into the shadows.

He stepped away from the woman. Shook his head in an attempt to clear the fog wreathing it.

“Have you eaten?”

She was as surprised as he was by the question. Elle took a step back, drawing her suit back up her arms with a slow shrug.

“Uh… no. Why?”

“I can… my house, it’s just—” he made a vague gesture in the general direction of his apartment a few blocks away.

“Oh.” Elle dropped her eyes and gripped her handbag to her stomach like a shield. “No. I… I should…”

But then her words faded away. Her shoulders sagged for a moment, and she mumbled something under her breath that he didn’t catch.

When her eyes lifted to his again, they blazed. This time, not with anger or frustration, but with resolute determination.

“Sounds good, Blake.”