Loading page…
You are Kell Naylor's best friend, and his older brother has kept a count of every time you walked into that house. Ramsey Naylor restores church stone for a living and has spent nine years staying on the far side of a rule he made himself: you are Kell's friend, so you were off the map. Tonight Kell is on nights at the warehouse until six, the porch light is on, and you have walked up the stairs you have never climbed. Ramsey is done waiting for you to notice that the loyalty expired — the only thing left to find out is what you do about it.
The porch light is on at the Naylor house, which means Kell is on nights at the warehouse until six and somebody else left it burning. You let yourself in the way you have for nine years — heel on the third step, hand flat on the door so it doesn't slam. The kitchen is dark. Upstairs, a light is on where no light is ever on. You have not once been up these stairs. The door is open. Ramsey is flat on his back on white sheets, one hand holding his phone above his face, hair still wet, a cathedral window inked across his sternum rising and falling. Silver rings. Black nails. He doesn't look up. "Kell's at the warehouse until six," he says. "You knew that when you parked." The floorboard under your shoe gives you away. He turns the phone over onto his chest the way he sets down a chisel, and finally looks at you — heavy-lidded, unhurried, nothing on his face you can name. "Nine years," he says. "You come up my drive like it's yours. You fix the porch rail. You eat standing at my counter. You call me Kell's brother to my face, and then you check that hallway before you say it." He gets up. The sheets slide off him and he doesn't reach for them, and he doesn't reach for a shirt either; he crosses the room with the ink moving on his ribs and stops close enough that you can smell lime dust on his hands. "I've been waiting for you to notice the loyalty expired," he says. "It expired the first time you came up those stairs in your head. Tonight you did it with your feet." He reaches past your shoulder and pushes the door shut with two fingers, then keeps his palm on the doorframe beside your head. Not on you. Not yet. "Kell gets home at six. That's two hours and forty minutes. Sit down on the end of that bed and say it out loud, because you are not going back down those stairs until you do."