Her heart jumped at the sound of her name in his mouth, still full of righteous frustration from the night before. He was like an animal padding around an enclosure, circling her. But this time, she would not make the same mistake, would not allow her naturally prickly energy to match his own.

“I didn’t say I was,” she clarified, crossing her arms over her chest to preserve whatever remained of her modesty. “I just don’t have anything to drink. And anyway, aren’t they waiting for you down at the harbor?”

He raised his wrist to check his watch, shaking his head. “I’m meeting them for dinner in an hour.”

His words settled between them, their implication unclear. Perhaps he just wanted to make her feel badly one last time, to diffuse some of the frustrated energy he’d doubtlessly accumulated while reading angry comments all morning.

“Well, I’ll let you get to it, then.” She tightened her arms over her chest, feeling tense. “I have to take a shower, anyway.”

“You have to take a shower,” he repeated.

She nodded.

“Just like that night at the karaoke bar, right?” He reached into his pocket, silencing the incoming call buzzing against his leg. “You just so happen to need a shower, and you have to tell me about it.”

She could feel him prodding her, and willed her tone to remain even.

“People shower.”

“Especially you, it seems.”

She paused, glancing at her laptop on the nightstand.

“Why are you here?” she asked, finally pushing back. “Didn’t I get a whole speech about how you’re done with me? ‘For your own health,’” she added, dropping her tone down to an approximation of his voice.

“I know what I said, thank you,” he answered, and she could see the flitting intensity of his thoughts behind his dark, tired eyes. For a moment he stood in silence, observing her before speaking again: “Can I have some water? It was a long walk.”

“Sure.” She sighed, lifting herself from the desk. “One second.”

She walked around the corner into the small tiled bathroom, grabbing one of the two upturned glasses and running the cold faucet to fill it. The bathroom felt like a microcosm of her life: small and tidy and good enough for her, until a rich person was looking at it.

Her eyes darted up to her own expression in the mirror, ragged and still reeling from the whiplash of his knock on her door. And before she realized what was happening, Danial appeared behind her, meeting her reflection directly as his long arm reached around her to turn off the faucet. For a moment, there were no words, just the pointed expression on his face that told her the pretense was over.

“What are you doing?” she asked, mouth suddenly dry, still holding the glass and feeling pathetically attached to the plausible deniability of two minutes ago.

“You know what I’m doing.”