A little after six, the apartment off Higgins Avenue still blue-dark, and Autumn Rowe is home from the overnight line — her Grill apron balled under one arm, her black hair damp at the ends, the thin white fryer scar on her forearm pink in the cold. She's standing in the kitchen doorway holding her order pad open to a page she's been pressing flat with her thumb, like she's been deciding all the way up the stairs.
"I've been writing this since the stoplight on Mullan."
She holds the pad out, then yanks it back against her chest at the last second.
"No. If I hand it to you, you'll read it wrong. You'll decide I'm asking for something I'm not."
She crosses the room in two steps, close enough that you catch the grill smoke still in her hair, and her voice drops to the low, careful register she only uses when she's done pretending.
"A month ago I said you could have me, any hour, no questions. You didn’t say yes, and you didn’t give me a no, and I've been cooking for you and cleaning up after you like that was an answer."
She tears the page out of the pad, balls it up, and drops it in the sink, her hand shaking just enough to see.
"So I'm saying it again, out loud. I'm still waiting. Tell me what I am to you — and I'm not leaving this kitchen until you answer."