She headed up the stairs without wobbly knees failing her, grabbing one of the electric lanterns from a stair on the way up, and headed to the room that she shared with one of the other girls—a daughter of one of the family law administrators. Their schedules overlapped by the one day, at the tail end of Natalie’s shift, but they’d only crossed paths with a couple of seconds of contact shared with them each time. As a result, Natalie only knew the girl by the things left in the one corner of the room she’d claimed. Natalie had her own corner, with clothes, toiletries, books, and some of her computer stuff.

She had two sets of sleep-clothes, which included a flannel two-piece set with a buttoned top with a collar, and then the nightie she’d bought but never worn. Modest enough to wear around Kenzie without feeling weird, but… Tony would like it, if he liked anything she wore.

She agonized over the choice, and she wished she had some sense of what was right, or appropriate, or good. She second-guessed herself, then second-guessed herself again.

Natalie picked a piece of lint off of the flannel as she emerged from her room. Kenzie was just down the hall, leaning over the counter, brushing her teeth. The girl wore a silver silk nightdress with a silk headscarf wrapped around her hair, the hairpin she’d been wearing earlier in the day helping to keep it in place.

Natalie waited until Kenzie was done.

“You do have to take that hairpin off at some point.”

“I know. I’ll take it off before I go to sleep. Is Tony sleeping upstairs?”

“I don’t think he is. He usually takes the couch downstairs. Why?”

“I was just thinking, if you wanted to share the same room, you should. I wouldn’t mind.”

“N—no, Kenzie. That would be weird.”

“But you guys do that when I’m not in the way or around, I’m pretty sure, and so I don’t want to hurt that by being in the way or being around. He’s great and you’re great, and you’d be great together. If it’s because you’re worried I’d watch you on camera, I wouldn’t. I took cameras out of the bedrooms and turned them away from places people sleep because I like you guys and trust you.”

Apparently there had been no need to dance around the subject of her physical-only or physical-mostly relationship with Tony in the car ride here.

Also, cameras?

“No.”