The car rolls, losing speed as it goes and Nora curses under her breath as she steers it to the shoulder of the road.
She shoves the door open and steps out onto gravel, the bite of December at her exposed calves, examining the front left tire. Air is still streaming in a steady hiss from the edges of the place where a nail has punctured the rubber. It's the same tire that has been replaced not even a month before and she sighs. Just her luck.
Looking around, she notes the closest business is a ramshackle gas station down the road and it will have to do. She kicks off her heels and holds them in one hand as she runs towards it, grateful that she seems to be the only one on the road at such an hour.
A woman at one of the two pump stations gives her an odd look and Nora's instantly self-conscious. No doubt this is no time to be concerned with her looks but she knows she hasn't looked so messy in public since grade school. She smooths her hair and raises her chin with all the confidence she doesn't feel. Appearances are everything, whether she likes it or not.
The door swings open, lighter than she thought, and the vigorous peal of the bell on the door makes her jump. The man at the counter can't be more than twenty and he looks up from his magazine, mildly annoyed.
"Sorry to trouble you. Do you have a phone?" she asks.
He reaches behind him to the rotary and plops it onto the counter before her, turning back to his issue of Astoundingly Awesome Tales without a word. He can't even be bothered to object when she sets her heels onto the counter.
She picks up the receiver and dials Nate, a number she knows by heart. She prays he's awake but somewhere between the fourth and seventh ring, she's almost sure he won't. She hangs up and tries again, crosses her fingers behind her back but no answer. Just her luck.
She retrieves her address book from her purse. Flipping through the pages, a wave of panic rushes through her. Most of her friends have children and are likely asleep and even fewer she trusts to know how to change a tire. She shouldn't call him, wonders if he'd even drive the half hour out of his way to assist her. Fingers brush over his name as she debates the shoulds and should-nots. She has all of Nate's friends' information for times like these and the wisest course of action is to call Warren. He's a mechanic; it's the logical choice. But the prospect of seeing Danse again is too good to pass up and before she's consciously decided to, her fingers are turning the dial.
She's nervous like a fourteen-year-old. Like she's at a sleepover and Mary Louise is daring her to call Daniel Jacobson and hang up all over again. She presses her fingers to her neck and feels the blush, out of her control and burning.
"Hello?"
He sounds tired and all at once, she regrets disturbing him but the sound of his voice could calm any storm and it calms hers. "Danse?"
"...Nora?"
She swallows and closes her eyes. "Are you busy? Did I wake you?"
"I'm... I'm awake. Is everything alright?"
Yes. Now, everything is alright. Perfectly marvelous. "I'm stranded with a flat. Would you mind changing it?"
There's the sound of shifting on the other end, like bed sheets sliding against each other. "Where?"
She doesn't know where she is. She presses the phone into the skin of her neck and asks the attendant who mumbles a mile marker that she relays to Danse.
"I'll be there. Wait inside."
She nods, knowing full well he can't see her but her voice isn't working, and hangs up, sliding the phone back toward the young man.
He barely glances up when she thanks him and shoes in hand, she steps just outside to save them both the awkwardness of waiting with a stranger. She pulls out a cigarette and lights it for no better reason than she's anxious and there's nothing else to do. She's smoked three by the time Danse pulls up and steps out of his car. There's a smile tugging at her lips at the sight of him because he looks exhausted and his hair is all sorts of disheveled. There's something incredibly sweet about the fact that he's here, in the middle of nowhere, when even Nate had managed to sleep through her calls.
He scrutinizes her like she's used to and it's heart-breakingly clear how much he wants to know her, what every twitch of her muscles means. He doesn't ask. "Morning."
She tries to close her mouth to take one last drag but her smile is widening. "Morning."
As if he's only just become aware her eyes raking over him, he drags his hands through his hair but Nora doesn't mind it unkempt. It makes her feel better about the way rogue strands of her own hair fall into her eyes.
She points him in the direction of her car and when she starts for the passenger seat, he holds the car door open for her. He can't know the way she adores those little gestures. They're still novel and she's still getting used to this new way he looks at her. No longer a drink to an alcoholic but he's still careful how close he stands and she's grateful. She isn't so stupid as to do away with the necessary boundaries. He knows how wide a berth they need from each other and she does her best to keep it.
He drives down the road and flips around to park just behind her car. It's leaning forward, succumbed to its circumstances, and it's obvious which tire needs changing.
His forearm rests across the steering wheel and it's too dark to see his face but she can tell he's thinking by the way his fingers twitch against the dash. "What happened?"
"Nail," she says quietly. She's the first out of the car to pop the trunk and he's right behind her, arms crossed as he examines the tools Nate had bought for roadside emergencies. "Should have everything you need."
He nods and pulls out the jack and the spare tire and she feels useless standing there shivering. She's got some idea of what needs to be done but not enough to assist in any meaningful way.
She offers anyway. "Can I help?"
"You can put the parking break on."
She slides into the driver's side and pulls the parking break back. It's a little contribution but if he wants her to feel helpful, it's working.
"You never learned how to change a tire?" he asks when she reappears at his side.
"Tragic, I know." She kicks at a pebble with the side of her heel. It skitters across the road, illuminated by the headlights of an oncoming car. If she were alone, she would be terrified. It's too late for any good to come of a woman by herself but as it is, she feels safe. Danse is too large a man for her to be prey. At his side, she's secure and she knows that he's armed.
He pops the hubcap off and lays it on the ground. "It's a valuable skill."
"I always seem to talk someone else into doing it for me."
"That what law school teaches you?" He smirks over his shoulder at her. "A degree in stratagem and artifice?"
"Big words for someone without a law degree," she jests.
"I'm sure you'll make good use of that diploma should the bombs drop."
"I'll sue the trousers off the Chinese. That'll teach them."
He chuckles but he's still too focused on the task at hand to see what it does to her. What he does to her. Even if her body is cold, she feels feverish now. It's second nature to reach for his shoulder but she stops herself. It doesn't matter how comfortable she is with touching him because he's still guarded around her and it's not right to push him.
Boundaries. Distance. Restraint.
He needs these things even if he doesn't say it but to his credit, he's learned to relax a remarkable amount. He lets her take care of him in the ways that she can from her place on the other side of the dividing line he's drawn. And it's a good thing, she reminds herself. It's just not what she's used to. She's better at throwing herself into what she does than stepping back from it so she doesn't know how to contend with the way he mangles her breath and batters her heart.
He's not trying to hurt her. This situation would be easier if she wasn't in a fragile emotional state. Maybe she would need him less, let him go even. But she has a heart too full, overflowing as she waits to make someone she can give herself to and there's a surfeit of affection in the meantime.
His voice draws her back to the present and grounds her. "Where were you coming from?"
"My office."
"This late?"
"No rest for the wicked," she smiles. "And none for me either, for that matter."
It's draining work, poring over countless documents testifying to abuse and maltreatment. Not something she can do forever but while she's young, zealous and fierce and full of energy, she will empty herself for a good cause. While her life is a countdown to motherhood, she needs the distraction.
Distractions. Danse is a distraction, too.
He's loosening bolts when he catches the violent shiver that wracks her. He drops the wrench and removes his jacket. He looks like he might put it around her shoulders but he thinks better of it and hands it to her. With a mumbled thank you, she slips her arms into the sleeves and it's still laced with his warmth and trace amounts of Danse's scent lingers.
He trades the old tire for the new one and starts to fasten it in place. The way he works is methodical and efficient. He's done this many times before and he makes it look so easy that she's embarrassed not to have been able to do it herself.
And just like that, he's lowering her car to the ground, done too soon. She doesn't want him to leave, isn't ready to wonder when she'll see him again and only hear about him through others.
She's grasping for straws when she spies dark marks at the collar of his shirt. Her eyes are drawn to them and without thinking, her fingers trace them. He stiffens at her touch and she wonders if she's pushing him too far or if the slight pressure hurts.
"What happened?"
She smiles to put him at ease. It's nothing scandalous but she feels so warm when she's this close to him. She can't help that he pulls her in. He's fire under her fingertips like she's never felt and she needs something to keep her for all the times he's gone.
The muscle under her hand is still taut and Danse opens his mouth to explain. His jaw twitches and then clenches shut and his wide eyes are begging her not to press him.
"Oh..." Her cheeks grow red like she's just been slapped and she may as well have been. She examines the bruises again and no, they're not bruises at all. Her thumb runs over them slowly, back and forth like they might rub off. If she squints, they're only pen marks stubbornly staining his skin. But the placement is all too conspicuous and she can't convince herself anymore, knows she's lost the fight when tears prick at her eyes.
She nods. "It's... uh, you can... uh..." Her eyes flick away and she clears her throat. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't pry."
He slides his hand up to her wrist. She thinks he means to be comforting but he pulls their hands down and away and they hang between them. She looks down at them sadly and the pressure in her chest is more than what it should be. She's known him all of six months. Her mother would call her ridiculous.
Nate loves her. He's beautiful and kind and attentive and enough. She lacks nothing; that's not the point. That's not what this is.
This is unfiltered attraction, raw and powerful and it expands exponentially every time he so much as looks her way. It won't fade, no matter how long they stay apart, no matter how much he pushes her away, no matter how good Nate is and she thinks she believes in soul mates now.
She wants to brush it off. It would be easier to be that girl but she knows how hard it will be to sleep tonight if she doesn't get an answer.
She waits and then she can't so she asks. "Who? When?"
He frowns and gathers the tools before him because he likes to keep his hands as busy as his mind. It isn't a good sign. "I was... with Camila when you called."
It's irrational that those words should feel so much like being raked over coals. Danse is not the only one fucking someone else but it feels different. She'd been married long before he'd walked into her home and left his shadow there. This, now, is Danse choosing another when he already knows how much she needs him.
Feelings rarely abide by the rules of fairness. No matter how many nights Nate drives her into the floor, the counter, the bed, she will always ache to hear that Danse has done the same to another.
She pictures it because her mind is cruel and the pain becomes focused, acute. Pinpricks across her skin that burrow deep. She pictures it because she doesn't want to and thinking about what you tell yourself not to is inevitable. And when she hides herself in her car and pretends that driving home is suddenly a priority, she can give Danse no more than the barest smile with lips that are rigid with preoccupation.
He taps on her window and she rolls it down even as she imagines driving away. She's mortified like she's the butt of a joke because she can never have any part of the man leaning into her car. It's irrelevant how many times he says her name and asks what she's thinking, asks her to please talk to him, Nora, please. If she could disappear from the moment, from the face of the planet, she would because she's a damned fool.
"I came, didn't I?" he says softly. "I'm sorry."
"Silly to be sorry, Danse," she says through the thickness of tears. "You're an adult and... and like I was saying, you can do whatever you want."
But it's not true. He can't do whatever he wants and neither can she. She doesn't realize what she's said until the words are already out and it's too late to take them back. They will both go home to lovers that are perfectly adequate because there's no second option.
She thanks him and buckles her seatbelt just to show him she's committed to accepting the way things are and not the way she wants them to be. He doesn't have to dismiss Camila at her whim. If the loneliness is too much to bear, then she'll never wish him alone.
But Nora is still selfish. Still a damned fool. And it still hurts like hell to send Danse home knowing someone is waiting on him.