He started toward the hallway. Darius. He stopped, turned. Clare was still standing in the center of the room, but she wasn't looking at the curtains anymore. She was looking at him.
Her arms were uncrossed now. Her hands were in her pockets. She had the posture of someone who had made a decision and was standing inside it. "Close them," she said. "When you're done," he went very still.
"Not the stillness of a man who doesn't understand, the stillness of a man who understands too clearly and is deciding what to do with that." He looked at the curtains. They were undrawn, hanging open on either side of the window. The afternoon light coming through the glass and cutting a bright rectangle across her floor. He looked at the window itself, the street outside, a neighbor across the way pulling into his driveway.
Another walking a dog. Why? Darius asked. His voice was level. Careful.
The way he kept his voice when he was in a situation where the wrong word could change everything. Clare glanced toward the window because everyone around here watches everything. He crossed the room slowly. He gripped the first panel. He pulled it across.
Then the second, the light changed. The room went quieter, not dark, but dim. The kind of afternoon dim that makes a room feel like it belongs to the people in it. He turned around. Clare was watching him.
I owe you an honest answer, she said. About why I really asked you to come over. Darius set his toolbox down on the floor. He didn't sit down. He stood where he was.
Toolbox at his feet and waited. "I've been wanting to ask you something for a while," Clare said. "And I kept finding reasons not to. And then my drill stopped working." "Because you didn't charge it."
"Because I didn't charge it," she agreed. "And I figured maybe that was the universe making the decision for me." "What question?" He said. She met his eyes.
"Would you want to have dinner with me?" "Not as neighbors. Not as." She paused. Not because you fixed my curtains and I feel like I owe you something.
A real dinner, like a date. The word landed in the room like something solid. Date. Darius looked at her for a long moment. He looked at the closed curtains.