Sacha sat back, still a little bright from the window.
"She's going to stand there until she can't see the car," she said.
"Probably."
"You're allowed to look pleased about that."
He did not argue. The road opened. Trees, then the first stretch that meant the town was behind them. His mind, which had been full of kitchens and receipts and the cool half of a guest-room bed, turned the way it always did once the wheels were moving.
Drop Sacha first. Then the apartment near Peak. And under that, quieter than the engine: Camilla. How she had been since he left. Whether the city had been kind. Whether she would still look at him the same when he walked in with last night still living somewhere he had not decided how to name.
The road unspooled toward Inksea, pale and ordinary, as if the world had not just been a guest-room and a kitchen and a window with a girl in it.
Stan's mind, which should have stayed on the lane markings, went to Camilla instead.
